BUTLER, Pa. — The Secret Service blamed local police for failing to secure the rooftop from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, insisting it was outside the perimeter the federal agency was tasked with protecting.
Instead, securing and patrolling the factory grounds of AGR International Inc. — located about 130 yards from the stage where Trump was speaking Saturday — was the responsibility of local Pennsylvania police, Secret Service representative Anthony Gugliemi said, according to the New York Times.
The Secret Service was only tasked with covering the grounds where Trump’s rally took place, with local police being recruited to assist with those efforts and secure the area outside the rally.
But neighbors living near Butler Farm Show Grounds told The Post they were never visited by any law enforcement agencies — local or federal — in the days before or during the rally.
“Nobody contacted me. Nobody. Nobody called me, nobody stopped here,” said Valerie Fennell, whose home backs up on the fair grounds and is just beyond a stand of trees from AGR.
“I kinda was thinking that as close as my house is, that I honestly thought this might be part of a command station at some point,” she said.
And it wasn’t just Fennell who wasn’t contacted by law enforcement — she said her entire neighborhood was bafflingly left alone despite their proximity to the rally grounds.
“I was talking to my neighbors yesterday, and none of them had gotten a call. Or anything,” she said, while her sister, Debra, agreed.
“I guess it’s kind of the same question that everybody has. I guess, as far as like, why that area wasn’t secure.”
The lapses also apparently continued into the rally.
Attendees reported seeing 20-year-old Thomas Crooks acting suspiciously near rally metal detectors, according to CNN, with local law enforcement being notified and broadcasting warnings over their radios to the Secret Service to be on the lookout for him.
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He was also reportedly seen with a rifle outside a security checkpoint to gain entrance into the rally, and later spotted jumping “roof to roof” before settling on the AGR factory.
Police apparently failed to locate him while those alerts were out, before finally responding to reports of an armed man on top of the AGR roof.
Around 6:10 p.m., a local police officer climbed a ladder onto the roof and came face to face with Crooks, who who was pointing his rifle at him, law enforcement sources told the Associated Press.
The officer backed down the ladder, and in those moments, Crooks took aim and fired about eight bullets at the rally. He struck Trump in the ear, fatally struck bystander Corey Comperatore in the audience, and gravely wounded two others in the crowd.
Within moments, Secret Service snipers stationed on a barn rooftop behind the stage fatally shot Crooks. Snipers appeared to have their sights trained in the direction of Crooks before they opened fire on him, though it is unclear whether they had seen him.
The Secret Service confirmed it leaned on local law enforcement to help run security at the event, telling the Washington Post it is common practice to depend on local agencies for support.
In addition to leaving the grounds outside the rally perimeter under the purview of local police, at least six officers from Butler County tactical units filled out the Secret Service’s counter assault team — the heavily armed agents who covered Trump’s evacuation — which only included two members of the Secret Service itself.
The Secret Service’s two sniper teams were backed up by two local sniper teams.
Pennsylvania police confirmed they assisted the Secret Service and regularly do so when high-profile government officials come to town, but that the federal agency ultimately runs the show.
“Secret Service always has the lead on securing something like this,” Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police told reporters.
“We work with them to provide whatever is requested by the Secret Service, but they’re the lead in that security,” he said.
Calls for an investigation into the Secret Service and what allowed Crooks to come within millimeters of assassinating Trump have begun, with House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announcing plans to summon agency director Kimberly Cheatle for a July 22 hearing.