In the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, one question is on nearly everyone’s mind: How did the gunman manage to fire eight bullets at the former president at such close range?
By all accounts, security failures and lapses abounded that day. To assess what went wrong, The Blaze News spoke to experts, including a 24-year Secret Service veteran, to answer some of the most obvious questions Americans have.
As news about last Saturday’s incident continues to leak out, more questions continue to arise about the police response to Thomas Matthew Crooks on the day of the shooting.
for example, Fox News Crooks’ parents reported him missing to police, CNN reported. Crooks had been searched by security guards hours before the incident, who found him to be carrying a rangefinder. Two remote explosive devices were later found in Crooks’ car.
How could someone suspected by police of being a suspicious person have such a close-up view of the former president, and why were investigators so slow to respond even after Crooks was found on the roof?
These questions remain unanswered officially, except for an excuse from Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle that the sloping top of the roof posed an apparently insurmountable security risk.
rooftop
To answer these questions, The Blaze News spoke with Kenneth Valentine, a former Secret Service agent with 24 years of experience who retired as a special agent in the VIP Security Division and also served in the Presidential Security Forces for 10 years.
The former agent, who worked under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, called the Pennsylvania shooting a failure of prevention and described such “close calls” as “the loss and failure of others.”
“That doesn’t happen outside of training… and here’s what happened. [to Trump]that doesn’t happen either.”
When asked directly why the director of the Secret Service did not station agents on the roof in question, he said he disagreed with Cheatle’s reasons, but suggested he would not have stationed agents there for other reasons.
“Just because the roof is sloped is not a reason not to put people there.”
“It would not be my first choice,” he continued. “Placing officers on the rooftop puts officers at unnecessary risk. Done correctly, we could have multiple officers on the ground outside the building to prevent anyone, especially those with weapons, from approaching the elevated areas overlooking the secured venue.”
Dallas Alexander, a former sniper and holder of the record for the longest sniping distance in history (2.2 miles), told The Blaze News that the exposed roofs nearby “just don’t make sense.”
“This is the closest building to where a former president or presidential candidate is going to speak. It’s an easy target at 150 yards with minimal training. There is an unsecured ladder to the roof right next to where Donald Trump is going to speak,” he said, sounding perplexed.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” he added.
Communications and Surveillance
According to Crooks’ report Get AroundThe incident, in which he is believed to have been investigating the rooftop he would later use, has led members of the public and experts to call for an explanation for an apparent lack of communication between law enforcement agencies at the scene.
According to a video circulating online, approximately 2 minutes A significant amount of time passed between when local protesters identified the gunman to authorities and when the first shots were fired, and many have suggested that minimal communication could have stopped Crooks long before the shots were fired.
“Communication is so important and it can save the day,” Valentine said.
Valentine explained that it is the Secret Service’s responsibility to plan communications for events like presidential rallies.
This includes “a command center staffed not only by the Secret Service but also by all other law enforcement agencies participating in the security plan.”
“They went out and looked at those buildings and numbered those buildings…. They knew this building very well, I guarantee you.”
“That’s where the communication should be. Ideally, if agents and officers working together encounter a man with a gun, that should be communicated twice — once by the Secret Service and once by the officer or detective on the scene, and then the command post has the information they need to communicate that to the shift personnel, the snipers and the shock troops,” Valentine explained.
The retired investigator said he was a little perplexed by the fact that Crooks was able to roam the area without being stopped again.
He explained that there should be teams of Secret Service and law enforcement officials specially tasked with keeping an eye on such suspicious individuals.
“The team is there to find the ducks among the geese.”
“You go looking for things out there that don’t belong there. If you see someone wearing a trench coat on a hot day, go and talk to them. If you see someone acting erratically…check it out and go and ask them.”
Valentine noted that it’s not uncommon to come across people on roofs in these circumstances.
“Please go and have a look. We have a team dedicated to going on the roof to speak to people who have windows open overlooking the event venue… please go and have a look.”
“Those sorts of things happen and we deal with them, but it looks to me like the plan wasn’t executed.”
Despite the presence of checkpoints on the outskirts of the secure area where Crooks was found with the rangefinder, Valentine asserted that people around the crime scene would still be under surveillance even if they did not go through the checkpoints.
This includes anyone acting suspiciously throughout the area, as well as suspicious vehicles in the vicinity.
“There needs to be some police presence in the area to make sure no one can get to higher ground,” he said.
In fact, Valentine said the presence of snipers in the area meant that security teams had conducted detailed reconnaissance of the area beforehand.
“They went out and looked at those buildings and numbered those buildings…. They knew this building very well, I guarantee you.”
Despite the ever-changing security situation at presidential rallies, Valentine said the shooting “should have been prevented.”
Alexander added that what he saw showed major lapses in security for the team, who should not assume anything would go according to plan.
As he said in a now-viral video post, Alexander said his experience led him to believe the assassination attempt on Crooks was likely assisted in some way.
“I believe this because I’ve been in counter-terrorism sniper units for many years and I’ve done close-quarters security for many years. … This is not just a security lapse. It goes beyond a small gap that’s not being monitored.”
“I believe he got help from somewhere,” Alexander said.
Both experts called for a thorough investigation into why so many failures occurred at one event, especially one involving a presidential candidate.
