Video, audio and witness testimony show that police knew Thomas Matthew Crooks had a rifle on the roof of a warehouse more than two minutes before he shot and killed former President Donald J. Trump, but the Secret Service says it was unaware the gun was there until Crooks opened fire.
A timeline compiled by Senate investigators, social media videos and witness accounts show that Secret Service agents had plenty of time to rescue Trump from the rally’s stage before he was hit by bullets from Crooks’ AR-15 rifle.
According to images revealed at a Senate hearing on July 30 and evidence accumulated from earlier investigations, local police had broadcast a report of a man with a gun on the roof of a nearby building, but for some reason the Secret Service never heard the call.
Investigators are inching closer to identifying the gunman who failed to stop 20-year-old Crooks before he fired a volley of eight shots into a packed crowd at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Everybody knew this guy had a gun at least two minutes before that shooting happened,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said during a heated Senate questioning session of Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Lowe.
“When the Secret Service fails, people die.”
“I’d love to know if you could tell me what happened in the last two minutes and how a lot of people in the crowd saw it and were yelling, ‘He’s got a gun!'”
“No information about weapons on the roof was ever shared with our personnel,” Rowe responded.
“How is that possible?” Lee said.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate testified that no information about the gun was shared with the Secret Service by local police.
Lee didn’t believe it.
“But there’s still time,” Lee said. “If they had had the communications to tell him, ‘He has a gun! Take him down!’ they could have taken President Trump off the stage. They could have had him turn over. They could have neutralized the shooter.”
The shocking new video, filmed by Butler resident Dave Stewart, shows a Pennsylvania State Police trooper with his gun drawn looking up at the roof of Building 6 on the American Glass Research Campus two minutes and seven seconds before Crooks opened fire.
The video showed six officers circling the perimeter of the building, trying to find Crooks, who was in a prone position and preparing to fire his gun, obscured by a 5-inch-tall gable atop the slightly sloping roof.
Video taken by a passerby a few metres from the western end of the building shows Crooks crawling up the sloping roof, rifle in hand, as he yells to alert nearby officers first to Crooks’ presence and then to the gun.
SWAT medics from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit struggle to get through a fence leading to the American Glass Research property where attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at former President Donald J. Trump.Beaver County Emergency Services Unit SWAT
A local police officer directing traffic heard the active shooter report over his police radio and rushed to Building 6 and was assisted by a second officer. When the officer stood up to look through the roof, Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, causing him to fall approximately eight feet to the ground, the FBI said.
Video taken by Michael DiFriscia of Greenville, Pennsylvania, showed Crooks lowering his head and aiming, while Stewart’s video, taken from the south side of the building, showed Crooks lifting his head from the roof about five seconds before shots rang out.
According to Senator Johnson’s timeline, at 6:11:03 pm, a local police officer radioed in to say, “The individual on the roof of the AGR building is armed and lying down.” Eight seconds later, an officer updated the broadcast, adding that the man on the roof was armed with a long gun.
In Stewart’s video, a man can be heard yelling, “He’s got a gun!” five seconds before the shooting began.
A new video posted to X on July 31, filmed by one of the rally attendees and filmed by Crooks, shows the gunman running across the roof of the AGR building, kneeling and then assuming a prone firing position, clearly visible from the event stage 130 yards away.
James Copenhaver, 74, was sitting in the bleachers to the left of Trump at the back of the stage when the shooting occurred. He was hit by one of Crooks’ eight bullets. He has recently been released from the hospital and is currently undergoing rehabilitation.
Stewart’s video footage showed Crooks raising his head above the gable of the roof to aim five seconds before the first shot rang out, and moments before that, Stewart’s video showed what appeared to be a drone flying from a nearby water tower in the direction of Building 6.
The first shot from Crooks’ rifle was fired at 6:11:33 PM, followed by two more shots and, after a short pause, five more bullets, the sounds of which were captured on Stewart’s video. At almost the same time as the eighth shot, a Secret Service countersniper bullet struck Crooks, killing him. A second countersniper shot was heard 10 seconds later.
Like the U.S. House of Representatives hearing on July 22, the Senate hearing on July 30 revealed senators’ clear dissatisfaction with Acting Secretary Rowe.
“The worst and most catastrophic security failure by the Secret Service since 1981”
Asked repeatedly about why the lack of security on the roof of Building 6 made it a perfect shooting spot for Crooks, Rowe’s responses ranged from not knowing the answer to shifting the blame to local police.
“The Secret Service said they were giving clear instructions to local residents. [police]”Was there a clear directive to cover the roof of the AGR building and local residents just didn’t follow it, or was there no clear directive at all?” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
Mr Lowe replied: “My understanding is that what has been communicated is that local people have plans and have been there before.”
Rowe realized that the local countersniper team was supposed to be in the building behind Building 6, so he placed on an easel a large photograph of the view from the building’s second-story window.
“If they just held their position and looked to their left,” he said.
One of the counter-snipers who took a photograph of Crooks from a second-floor window at 5:14 p.m. said he briefly left the building to help police search the premises after they lost sight of him.
US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Trump’s rally “the most egregious, most catastrophic security failure by the Secret Service since the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.”
Cruz said that if there was any accountability within the Secret Service, former director Kimberly Cheatle would have resigned on July 13.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Ga.) read a counter-sniper whistleblower email sent to all members of the Secret Service’s uniformed division that predicted new assassination attempts before Election Day because of bureaucratic failures.
The whistleblower said that his membership in the Secret Service’s anti-sniper team was once a source of pride but was now “a stain that will never be wiped away.”
Blackburn said the Secret Service’s mission couldn’t be more important.
“There are 31 protected individuals for whom the Secret Service is responsible,” Blackburn said. “The urgency of their mission speaks to the fact that this isn’t a federal agency missing caseloads or a corporation missing revenue numbers.”
“When the Secret Service fails, people die.”
After the hearing, Senator Johnson expressed frustration with the lack of response from federal investigators, despite positive responses from local law enforcement officials. “The federal authorities have just given us the middle finger,” Johnson said. “Local law enforcement officials have begun to engage with us and provide us with information.”
Updated shooting timeline
On July 30, Johnson released an updated timeline of the shootings.
4:26 p.m. — A Beaver County officer leaving the premises after his shift alerted other officers to Crooks and his location at a picnic table.
5:10 p.m. — Crooks was first spotted by a local sheriff’s counter-sniper on the second floor of a building on the American Glass Research Campus.
5:14 p.m. — A local anti-sniper captures two photographs of Crooks as a “suspicious person.”
5:30 p.m. — Former President Donald J. Trump arrives at the Butler Farm Show grounds for a scheduled speech.
5:32 p.m. — A local sheriff’s counter-shooter observes Crooks scrolling through his phone and using a rangefinder, a device used to measure distances in golf and sport shooting.
5:38 p.m. — A local counter-sniper sends a text describing Crooks to other law enforcement snipers.
5:40pm — Local snipers are instructed to call the command center regarding Crooks.
5:41 p.m. — A local sniper reports over police radio about Crooks and how he used a rangefinder.
5:45 p.m. — A Butler County sniper sends a photo and description of Crooks to one of the Secret Service countersnipers at the rally and provides instructions on using a rangefinder.
5:53pm – The leader of the anti-sniper team sent out a group email, informing local law enforcement: [is] Searching for suspicious person outside the perimeter.”
6:03pm — Former President Trump takes the stage.
6:06 p.m. — Crooks climbs onto the roof of AGR Building 6, according to the FBI.
6:08:20pm — A local police officer radioed in to report that someone was on the roof of AGR Building 6.
6:10:04 to 6:10:19 p.m. — A rally attendee records video that appears to show Crooks on a roof. A person can be heard trying to get police attention: “He’s on the roof. He’s up there.”
6:11 p.m. — Crooks points his rifle at a local police officer who has climbed to the edge of the roof to watch, and the officer drops to the ground to get out of the line of fire.
6:11:03 — Local law enforcement radios in to report a man lying armed on the roof of Building 6.
6:11:11 — Local police report over the radio that a man on the roof had a “long gun.”
6:11:33 — The first two shots are fired toward President Trump and the crowd.
6:11:34 — Five more gunshots are heard, followed by return fire.
6:11:40 — Police receive radio orders to close all roads.
6:11:52 — The final gunshot is heard.
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