WASHINGTON – In the chaotic aftermath of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last month, a local police officer told a fellow officer he had warned the Secret Service days earlier that the building where the 20-year-old gunman opened fire needed to be secured.
“I (expletive) told them they needed to post guys (expletive) over here," the officer said in police body camera footage released by the Butler Township Police Department. “I told them that (expletive) Tuesday.”
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When another officer asked who he told that to, he responded: “the Secret Service.”
Police body camera videos, released in response to a public records request, show frustration among local law enforcement at how Thomas Matthew Crooks — whom police had flagged as suspicious before the shooting — managed to slip away from their view, scale a roof and open fire with an AR-style rifle at the former president and Republican presidential nominee. They also show police expressing confusion and anger about why no law enforcement had been stationed on the roof.
“I wasn’t even concerned about it because I thought someone was on the roof,” one officer says. He asked how “the hell” they could have lost sight of Crooks after spotting him acting suspiciously if law enforcement had been on top of the building. The other officer responded: “They were inside.”
Trump was struck in the ear but avoided serious injury. One spectator was killed and two others were injured.
Several investigations are underway into the security failures that led to the shooting. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., who took over after the resignation of former chief Kimberly Cheatle, has said he “cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.” The Secret Service controls the area after people pass through metal detectors, while local law enforcement is supposed to handle outside the perimeter. Rowe told lawmakers last month that Secret Service had “assumed that the state and locals had it” covered.
A Secret Service spokesperson said Friday the agency is reviewing the body camera footage.
“The U.S. Secret Service appreciates our local law enforcement partners, who acted courageously as they worked to locate the shooter that day,” spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in an email, "The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a U.S. Secret Service failure, and we are reviewing and updating our protective policies and procedures in order to ensure a tragedy like this never occurs again.”
Two officers from local county sniper teams were inside the complex of buildings and spotted Crooks acting strangely. One of them ran outside to look for Crooks while the other remained in the building on the second floor, according to Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger. But neither officer could see Crooks on top of the adjacent building from their second-floor position, Goldinger has said.
Another video shows officers frantically looking for Crooks in the moments before the shooting. The video shows one officer help another climb up to the roof to investigate, spotting Crooks before dropping down and running to his car to grab his gun. There is no audio in the video until the officer is back at his car, grabbing his weapon, so it's unclear what he said after seeing Crooks on the roof. It was not immediately clear whether the sound was not recorded, or if the audio had been redacted by police.
The acting Secret Service director has said local law enforcement did not alert his agency before the shooting that an armed person had been spotted on a nearby roof.
After the shooting, officers are seen in one video climbing onto the roof, where Crooks lay dead. Standing near his body, one of the officers says he was “(expletive) pissed" that police “couldn't find him.”
“I hear you bro,” the officer responds. “But for now, I mean, he's the only one.”
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Lauer reported from Philadelphia