Officers Alerted Tactical Channel About ‘Suspicious Male’ Before Trump Shooting

The stage where former President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pa., on July 14, 2024. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

The manager of the Pennsylvania township that was host to a campaign rally in which a gunman fired shots at former President Donald Trump on July 13 said that local officers radioed a call on a tactical channel about a “suspicious male” near the warehouse where he ultimately perched.

In a statement released Wednesday, Butler Township Manager Tom Knights said that after the former president arrived, “a call went out for a suspicious male near the AGR building,” referring to the warehouse that was used by Thomas Matthew Crooks.

Multiple officers who were on traffic duty for the rally “broke free from their traffic intersections ... to aid in the search” for the suspicious person, the statement said. “A search was conducted around the AGR building and the person of interest was not located, and no ladder was discovered,” it said.

During interviews with NBC News and Fox News Mr. Knights said that a “blanket tactical channel” was used and that individuals on the channel heard the call about a suspicious male. “Everyone who was on that tactical channel heard it,” he told NBC News.

It’s not clear from the interviews whether the Secret Service had been using the tactical channel Mr. Knights mentioned.

The Epoch Times contacted the Secret Service and Mr. Knight’s office for comment Thursday. The federal agency, meanwhile, has not issued a response either in a public statement or through a spokesperson about Mr. Knight’s statement regarding the call on the channel.

Mr. Knight said in the interviews and in his statement that an officer tried to gain access to the roof where Mr. Crooks was perched when the suspect then pointed a rifle at him, forcing the officer to drop down to the ground level.

Butler Township Police then immediately said the individual on the roof had a weapon, and moments later, he started firing at the rally, according to the statement.

In the shooting, one person was killed and two were injured, but are in stable condition, Pennsylvania State Police said. Former President Trump was struck in the ear and appeared to be fine during his public appearances at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee this week.

Aside from Mr. Butler’s statement, a Butler County District Attorney, Richard Goldinger, said a local police officer fired at the gunman after he opened fire, although it’s not clear whether the officer struck the assailant. The Secret Service confirmed that one of its counter snipers shot and killed Mr. Crooks.

“Our guys did engage him,” Mr. Goldinger told the NY Times Wednesday, adding that the local officer’s gunfire prompted a “reaction” from Mr. Crooks. He did not elaborate.

Butler County, he said, provided assistance to the Secret Service at the rally by deploying officers near a barn as well as four fast-response teams and four sniper teams. No local officer was inside the building that Mr. Crooks had climbed on, he said.

Also Wednesday, Mr. Goldinger said the Secret Service was told by local police that it “did not have manpower to assist with securing that building.”

“I don’t know whose responsibility that building was,” he said. “But somebody should have been there.”

Since the shooting, questions have emerged about whether the Secret Service did enough to try to prevent such an incident from occurring, while a number of Republican lawmakers, including members of the Senate GOP leadership, called for the director’s resignation on Wednesday following a Secret Service briefing with members of Congress.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who has said she wouldn’t step down, told CNN this week that her agency had “divided up areas of responsibility” for the rally but the Secret Service is “solely responsible” for the security design.

“Secret Service respects local law enforcement, and we could not do our job, either investigatively or on our protective mission, without them. In Pennsylvania, in fact, on that same day, they were also working the first lady trip and the vice presidential trip. So, I understand the constraints that they’re under, and as I said earlier, we couldn’t do our job without them,” she said.

Investigations into the matter are already underway. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena Wednesday to Ms. Cheatle to ensure she appears at a House Oversight hearing planned for July 22.

Also Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said on the agency’s website that it is opening a review into the incident.