By Christen Smith (The Center Square)
A Butler Township police officer said he’d warned the U.S. Secret Service about security concerns arising from the unguarded building where a would-be assassin shot and nearly killed former President Donald Trump during a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania.
Drew Blasko, a patrolman with the department who served as assistant team leader of one of two local sniper units on duty that day, told the congressional task force investigating the incident that no clear line of sight existed for the AGR building roof or its surrounding complex, which was located beyond the security perimeter set by the Secret Service.
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“And I asked the Secret Service members that we do not have the additional manpower to post anybody there and I requested additional people to be posted there so there would be no access to those grounds,” he said.
The agency told Blasko they’d “take care of it.” That didn’t happen – a point that was illustrated when Chairman Mike Kelly, R-Pa., showed a state trooper’s dashboard camera footage that caught the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, scaling the roof of the AGR building. In just three minutes he opened fire.
In the video, a local police officer is seen peering onto the roof to confirm that the shooter was armed. When Crooks aimed the rifle at the officer, he dropped to the ground and radioed for help. Gunshots rang out roughly 30 seconds later.
Adams Township Police Sgt. Edward Lenz, who commanded the Butler County Emergency Services Unit during the rally, said that once he’d heard Crooks was “clearly a threat,” he tried to alert the quick-reaction force on site – though it was too little too late.
“Prior to me finishing that radio transmission you can hear shots being fired through my open microphone,” he said.
The testimony backs up a 133-page bipartisan Senate interim report released Wednesday. Legislation has been introduced to increase security detail for Trump and running mate Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.
The request for more outdoor guards wasn’t the only resource discussed that never showed up on the day of the rally. Lenz and Pennsylvania State Police Lt. John Herold said sniper fencing was intended to cover a chain-link fence separating the AGR complex from the farm show grounds. Additional barriers, including a large projector screen, were not set up either.
During questioning, the lawmen agreed that eight to 10 more officers stationed outside the building would have likely prevented Crooks from getting into position. Foot traffic around the complex could have been restricted – upward of 200 people who had not gone through security screening were reportedly watching the rally from the parking lot – and approximately 5 acres of the building’s land could have been sectioned off from the public. A sniper on the nearby water tower, cameras on the building’s roof and blocked-off parking would have been other options, the officers added.
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U.S. Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, scoffed at the notion that hundreds of people were 50 yards closer to the president than the shooter was “and we didn’t even know who they were.” Behind him, an enlarged map of the site showed the position of the AGR building roughly 130 yards from the rally stage.
Lawmakers on the task force repeatedly expressed how close the building was and how unthinkable it was that the Secret Service excluded it from their security perimeter.
“A 10-year-old looking at that satellite image could have seen that the greatest threat posed to the president that day outside of the security perimeter was the AGR building and that roof,” Fallon said. “And a 20-year-old with a week’s notice figured it out and outsmarted and outmaneuvered the entire U.S. Secret Service, and that is a shame and a stain on their agency.”
Patrick Sullivan, a retired Secret Service agent who guarded former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said members assigned to campaigns are stretched too thin. It was a point the agency’s former director, Kim Cheatle, noted during congressional testimony in the days after the assassination attempt.
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“Agents are exhausted now, the campaign really really takes a lot out of them, and I think the Secret Service does not have enough personnel and resources to give people enough breaks that they need,” Sullivan said.
He didn’t excuse the agency’s planning and communication failures – far from it.
“The information that has come to light so far regarding the security failures in Butler is shocking and infuriating,” he said. “However, I am very, very proud of the agents who put themselves in harm’s way to save former President Trump and the skill of the counter sniper who neutralized the gunman with one shot.”
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.