US Secret Service chief says local police warned of gunman at Trump shooting

[August 03, 2024]  By Andrew Goudsward and Costas Pitas
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Secret Service's acting director said on Friday that local police in Pennsylvania warned that there was a man with a gun on a roof before the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, but the message did not reach its agents on time.  

Acting Director of the U.S. Secret Service, Ronald L. Rowe, Jr. appears before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 30, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt

Local authorities and Secret Service agents were using different communications channels, which prevented the warning from getting through before a 20-year-old assailant opened fire on the Republican presidential candidate, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told reporters.

"In the final 30 seconds - which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire - there (were) clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have," Rowe said.

Rowe said the FBI, the agency leading a criminal investigation into the shooting, is working to determine exactly what was communicated. But Rowe said investigators believe "there was somebody who did in fact radio out that they had seen the individual with a weapon."

A local police officer confronted the shooter on the roof of the industrial building where he ultimately opened fire. But the officer, who had been hoisted up by a colleague, fell to the ground about 30 seconds before the assailant began shooting, law enforcement officials previously have said.

At the time shots rang out, the Secret Service were aware local police were dealing with an issue on the periphery of the event, but did not know about a weapon, Rowe said.

In testimony to Congress on Tuesday, Rowe had blamed the failure on local law enforcement while also saying he was "ashamed" of the security lapse that occurred on the day of the shooting. Rowe also noted that the Secret Service had not been present in a command post set up by local law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania for the outdoor campaign rally by the former president.

The first shooting of a U.S. president or major party presidential candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.

Officials have said that Thomas Crooks, 20, fired the shots that wounded Trump's right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle, before law enforcement snipers shot and killed him.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Costas Pitas; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Chizu Nomiyama)

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