Pittsburgh – After Pennsylvania State Police officials revealed that at least two other suspicious individuals were spotted at the Trump rally on July 13 in addition to would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, experts told Fox News Digital that reports of “suspicious” or “unusual” individuals at Secret Service events are common.
Pennsylvania State Police Superintendent Colonel Christopher Parris testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week that at least two other suspicious individuals had been identified at the rally before Crooks plotted to assassinate former President Trump.
Actual “threats” were rare and the perpetrator is believed to have acted alone, but the state police chief’s testimony raises new questions about aspects of the attempted assassination of President Trump.
Trump shooter wasn’t the only suspicious person at Butler rally: Pennsylvania State Police chief
Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek (left) of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office speaks during a press conference at a police station in Butler, Pennsylvania, as Pennsylvania State Police Colonel Christopher Parris looks on, following the shooting and wounding of former President Trump during a campaign rally on July 13. (Reuters/Brendan McDiarmid)
Paris told lawmakers that before the deadly rally, she had contacted the Secret Service about a building Crooks later planned to climb and open fire.
“That’s what I was told. That Butler [Emergency Services Unit] ESU “The area manager was accompanied by several Secret Service agents to the scene,” he said. County leaders dispute that statement.
Lawmakers spent days grilling law enforcement leaders about security failings at the rally, with several even visiting the site themselves, about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh. Days after Monday’s testimony, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned.
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Paris testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week that at least two other people were considered suspicious after Crooks and other suspects were identified. The would-be assassin “became even more suspicious” after authorities saw Crooks carrying a rangefinder, Paris said.
” [counter-sniper] The team had not focused on the roof of the building or the roof access because they thought that area was covered. It was only once he began firing that they turned their attention there.”
He was moving around outside the perimeter with a backpack on, so police decided to keep an eye on him. When officers approached, he ran away.
“There was text messaging going on and at some point he was photographed using a rangefinder,” he told lawmakers. “Suspicions were raised. I know from interviews that that was immediately communicated by command to the Secret Service.”
Trump shooting: A timeline of the assassination attempt
Thomas Matthew Crooks is the alleged assassin responsible for the attempted assassination of former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. (Source: Fox News Digital)
Experts say a person may be marked as suspicious or abnormal for a variety of reasons, and the Secret Service has agents on the ground to quickly evaluate such individuals.
“Suspicious person? Not uncommon. The bar is very low. A true threat? Much rarer, but Crooks fell into the latter category,” said former New York Police Department inspector Paul Mauro.
Paris testified that Crooks was initially seen unarmed and authorities considered him suspicious at the time, but not a serious threat.
“They were out looking for him when he started firing. They were just a few seconds too late.”
“In every one of the thousands of events I’ve worked on, there have been suspicious people or events that required investigation,” said Bill Gage, a former Secret Service agent and consultant with Safe Haven Security Group.
After the US Secret Service returned fire following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, authorities approached the spot where the suspected shooter was found dead. (Source: Fox News Digital)
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Police and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) may differ in their exact definition of a suspicious person, he said.
“Why is the PSP director [Pennsylvania State Police] “Do they view them as suspicious? Did they approach an officer and ask for Trump’s autograph? That might seem suspicious to locals, but it’s normal for the USSS,” he said. “Or was it someone wearing the proverbial long trench coat on a hot day?”
Gage said Parris had been candid in his testimony, but that his answers raised entirely new questions.
“The perpetrator was confronted by police and then ‘ran away’? That’s very odd for someone to behave like that at an event,” he said. “To put a backpack on and run from police? Was that information passed on to command center? What was command center told?”
Police officers respond at a rally for former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Gage also said he wanted more details about the “text thread” that officers allegedly used to communicate about Crooks’ initial sighting and disappearance.
Cops reported man with rangefinder at Trump rally 30 minutes before assassination attempt: Sources
“Crux was on the roof for three minutes? Three minutes is an eternity for a sniper,” he said. “The CS team didn’t focus on the roof of the building or the access to the roof because they thought that area was covered. It wasn’t until Cruux started firing that they turned their attention there.”
Former President Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
For Mauro, the immediate question is where county agents were positioned when the Secret Service and local partners tried to track down Crooks when it was determined action was needed.
“Was there anyone left in that second-floor lookout?” he mused, pointing to a vantage point close to where Crooks had fired his shot.
He added that releasing the operational plans to congressional investigators would help clear up lingering confusion about who was where and why security breaches were allowed.
Cheatle, in his testimony this week, acknowledged that Crooks had been seen outside the secured perimeter before the shooting and said authorities had received “between two and five” reports of a suspicious person. He also said at another point in his testimony that he believed Crooks was acting alone.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 5, 2023, at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
She added that Crooks was upgraded from a suspicious person to an actual threat “seconds before the shooting began.” Cheatle subsequently resigned following bipartisan calls for him to do so.
FBI Director Christopher Wray also testified before Congress, revealing some of the information agents were able to glean from Crooks’ cell phone and laptop.
On the same day he registered to attend the rally, Crooks had researched previous presidential assassinations, including searching Google for the phrase “how far was Oswald from Kennedy?”
“Starting around July 6, he started paying very close attention to former President Trump and this rally,” he said.
In a later statement, the FBI said the investigation into Crooks was its top priority.
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“From the day of the attack, the FBI has consistently stated that this shooting was an attempted assassination of President Trump, resulting in the wounding of the president, the death of his heroic father, and the injury of several others,” the spokesperson said. “This was a heinous attack, and the FBI is dedicating significant resources to learning everything possible about the shooter and what led him to commit this violent act. The FBI’s shooting reconstruction team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation is ongoing.”
The 20-year-old man did not manage to kill the Republican presidential candidate but killed bystander Corey Comperatore, 50, and wounded at least two others in the audience, David Duch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74. Trump, who crouched for cover and was later photographed bleeding on the right side of his head, said he had been shot in the ear.
Trump said this week on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” that the Secret Service allowed him to take the stage without warning him about suspicious people on the perimeter of the rally.
Fox News’ Christina Coulter and Sarah Rumpf Whitten contributed to this report.
