Police officers from a local tactical team assigned to former President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 said there was no contact between their SWAT team and the U.S. Secret Service before Trump was shot.
“Every time a member of the Secret Service arrived, they were going to be interviewed in person,” said Jason Woods, lead sniper for the Beaver County team. ABC News“That didn’t happen.”
Woods told the outlet that a lack of communication likely contributed to the serious planning failure that resulted in 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks wounding Trump, killing spectator Corey Compartore and wounding two other people before being shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
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A bloodied Donald Trump is surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is escorted off stage on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
“That was probably the defining moment, because nothing was happening and I started to think something was wrong,” he continued. “We had no communication.”
Following the assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned and a series of law enforcement and congressional investigations were announced.
Woods told ABC News that he and his team were in position hours before Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show, but that his team first had contact with the Secret Service “after the shooting happened.” By that point, he said, it was “too late.”
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Former President Trump reacts as multiple gunshots ring out during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Reuters/Brendan McDiarmid)
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ABC reported that one of Beaver County’s snipers took a photo of Crooks and alerted commanders about his suspicious presence at the venue, but the 20-year-old gunman still managed to find a position on the building’s roof.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Secret Service and top advisers have questioned why they were not informed that local police had spotted a suspicious man who turned out to be the would-be assassin.
Trump advisers said they thought gunfire was coming from a large white tent behind the stage. The Washington Post.
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After Beaver County Emergency Services officials discovered Thomas Crooks’ body, they provided his cell phone information to Secret Service agents. (Beaver County ESU obtained by Senator Grassley)
Two advisers, whom the media did not name, said they didn’t understand why no warning was given so that Trump could consider postponing the speech, a sentiment echoed by Republican candidates in interviews with Fox News.
“Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” the former president said in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday. “They could have said, ‘Let’s give it 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ or whatever. Nobody said that. I think that was a mistake.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks is photographed in front of the Butler Fairgrounds in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on the former president on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Bethel Park School District/Getty Images)
Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who heads the Emergency Services Unit and SWAT team, said the group “did everything that was humanly possible that day.”
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“In SWAT, we often talk about how nothing matters as individuals unless we come together as a team,” Young said.
