A new report from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) reveals that the Secret Service had knowledge of Thomas Crooks positioning on a rooftop with a rifle two minutes before he opened fire on then-candidate Donald Trump during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Secret Service's protective detail for Trump was not alerted.
The unredacted report, released Thursday, identifies multiple missed opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt the assassination attempt. According to the OIG's findings, local law enforcement notified the Secret Service of a suspicious person on the roof at 6:09 p.m., while Trump was shot at eight times at 6:11 p.m.
"The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination," the report states. The OIG’s investigation is based on 92 interviews, over 70,000 documents, and a 3D model to reconstruct the event site.
Security Lapses Detailed
The report found that the Secret Service failed to detect Crooks's drone flight, which was used to survey the campaign event stage. This failure is attributed to an undertrained operator who had received only 20 minutes of informal training, and a malfunctioning ethernet cable that was repaired approximately 30 minutes after Crooks's drone had already passed over the site undetected. In one instance, Trump's campaign staff reportedly declined requests from agents to park trucks that would have blocked the shooter's line of sight, as they feared the trucks would obstruct the desired press photos of Trump.
Further deficiencies were noted in the lack of formal communication channels with local law enforcement. The Secret Service did not receive 102 radio transmissions from local officers in a separate communications room leading up to the event. Instead, they received only five phone calls and three text messages concerning a suspicious individual later identified as Crooks. Crucially, three transmissions indicating the suspect possessed a long gun were not received by the Secret Service.
"The limited communication regarding the suspicious person... did not create a sense of urgency for Secret Service members to report this information to President Trump’s protective detail," the OIG report concluded.
Recommendations and Context
The OIG report outlines seven recommendations for the Secret Service to enhance its event security protocols. These findings follow recent security incidents, including gunshots fired at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and an alleged attack plot at the White House that led to arrests. The OIG report's release coincides with preparations for the nation's 250th anniversary, which will draw many visitors to the capital.```json { Kategorie_slug: