On Thursday, the Butler Township Police Department in Pennsylvania published 12 body camera videos of the events surrounding the July 13 attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump, per Fox News.
The assassination attempt was carried out by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who climbed to a rooftop with a line of sight to the stage from which the presidential candidate was delivering a speech. Crooks fired eight times from 147 yards. As the Deseret News previously reported, he grazed Trump’s ear, killed one audience member and left two seriously injured.
Security was aware of Crooks
The released footage shows the reactions of Butler police officers immediately after the attempt.
“I (expletive) told them they need to post the guys (expletive) over here. I told them,” one video records a local police officer saying. “The Secret Service. I told them that (expletive) Tuesday.”
Off-camera, someone questions the first man, saying he thought he had been stationed on the roof that Crooks shot from.
“No, we were inside,” the first officer replied.
Text messages obtained by The New York Times also share that Beaver County officers, including counter-snipers, were suspicious of Crooks for up to 90 minutes before he attacked.
The texts included a picture of Crooks and his location on the ground, before he ascended to the roof. Counter-snipers confirmed that they had eyes on him. However, when Crooks made it to the top of the warehouse, no one seemed to be aware of his location or the danger it posed.
Why did no one intercept the would-be assassin?
Confusion lied between the Secret Service and local police authorities as to who was supposed to man the rooftop, according to NBC News. The Secret Service was assigned the rooftop to Butler policeman, per Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman — but no one was stationed on the roof.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger asserted that the Secret Service was responsible for security outside the venue. “They had meetings in the week prior. The Secret Service ran the show. They were the ones who designated who did what,” he said. “In the command hierarchy, they were top, they were No. 1.”
Goldinger said he was told by the leader of the Emergency Services Unit, which Butler had deployed near the rooftop, that they were not responsible for any areas outside the venue, including the warehouse.
“To me, the whole thing (was) under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service. And they (would) delineate from there,” Goldinger said.
A anonymous former Secret Service agent told NBC News that, even if local officers “did drop the ball,” responsibility ultimately fell to the Secret Service “to ensure that they are following through either beforehand or in the moment. ... Just because it is outside of the perimeter, it doesn’t take it out of play for a vulnerability, and you’ve got to mitigate it in some fashion.”