A Department of Homeland Security inspector general report released Thursday detailed significant missed opportunities by the Secret Service in preventing the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on then-President Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The report concluded that Secret Service personnel "missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt" the actions of Thomas Crooks, the gunman who climbed onto the roof of the American Glass Research International (AGR) complex, located 155 yards from the rally stage.
Communications failures were a critical factor, as the president's protective detail was never alerted to the armed man on the roof. According to the report, at 6:09 p.m. on the day of the rally, local law enforcement contacted the Secret Service and Pennsylvania State Police communications room to warn them of a suspicious person on the AGR complex's roof. However, the Secret Service communications room supervisor delegated the information to the counter drone operator, describing it as a "busy time" on the radios. The operator, in turn, began searching online for the AGR complex's location instead of seeking immediate clarification from law enforcement. He was still conducting this search when Crooks fired his first shots at 6:11 p.m.
During this two-minute window, Crooks fired eight shots, grazing Trump's ear and wounding several others while killing one rally attendee. The DHS report indicated that Secret Service communications room personnel did not identify Crooks as an urgent threat before he opened fire, and decision-makers responsible for Trump's protection on stage were not made aware of his presence at any time.
The report highlighted that the Secret Service failed to establish a joint communications room with local law enforcement, which had been receiving increasingly urgent transmissions about the gunman. These transmissions included a 5:42 p.m. radio call from local law enforcement noting a "younger white male long hair lurking around the AGR building, he was viewed with a rangefinder sighting the stage." Subsequent calls from 6:08 p.m. and 6:11 p.m. reported an armed individual on the roof with a long gun, just moments before shots were fired. Despite these alerts, the Secret Service reportedly received only five phone calls and three text messages regarding Crooks.
Further compounding the security lapse, the report found that Trump's campaign staff had previously denied a Secret Service request to position trucks between the AGR building and the stage. The campaign staff cited concerns that the trucks would obstruct the press's camera shots of Trump. The Secret Service site agent counterpart then proposed moving the trucks to a different location that would block the line of sight from another area, which campaign staff approved.
Crooks was killed by law enforcement at the rally shortly after he began shooting.