A Butler County official who was a witness to the first assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania provided more details on Thursday about a local police officer’s actions that he believed stopped the would-be assassin.
“From their positions inside the AGR building, the snipers were not able to see the roof where the shooter was located. And again, that was not within their area of responsibility,” he said.
Lenz told lawmakers on Thursday that police sniper teams were looking into the crowd where attendees were already screened by security. A local police officer, he said, spotted suspicious people near the rally, while a sniper later took a photo of a man who was using a rangefinder tool that was pointing toward the stage before the photo was sent to local police, the county’s sheriff’s office, and the Secret Service.
The man, who was near the AGR building with the rangefinder, was later identified as Crooks by law enforcement officials in the days after the incident.
Lenz said that an Emergency Services Unit operator exited a separate building near where Trump was speaking and monitored the AGR building area. When Crooks started firing at the rally, the officer “quickly identified” where the gunfire had originated, Lenz said, adding that the officer located the gunman and fired one round at him using a rifle.
A Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed Crooks soon after the would-be assassin started shooting, striking Trump in the right ear and killing one rally attendee, Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was trying to protect his family. Two other people were injured during the shooting, which has prompted significant questions about the Secret Service’s capabilities to protect the former president.
In the hearing on Thursday, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), the chairman of the House investigatory task force into the assassination attempt, said that there were multiple security failures that allowed Crooks, 20, to “out-maneuver one of our country’s most elite group of security professionals.”
The Secret Service did not create a comprehensive plan for local law enforcement agencies, did not secure the rally site well enough, and did not engage in effective communication, said Kelly and the ranking member on the panel, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.).
“Altogether, these other failures led to a dysfunctional security situation that took the life of Mr. Comperatore, injured two others, and nearly claimed the former president’s life,” Kelly said, citing his task force’s findings.
Crow said that the Secret Service’s communication with “local and state partners” on July 13 was “disjointed and unclear,” adding the agency has to “do better” in the future.
Last week, the Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, told a news conference in Washington that the agency failed in its mission to secure the rally site. Several agency officials involved in security at the site will face disciplinary actions, he said.
“This was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service,” Rowe told the news conference on Sept. 20. “It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this again.”
Making note of a second assassination attempt against Trump on Sept. 15, Rowe said that the agency needs a “paradigm shift” because the current “threat level is evolving.”
