Communication breakdowns between the Secret Service and local police limited the service's effectiveness on the night of a July campaign rally at which former President Donald Trump was shot and wounded, a newly released document says, detailing a long list of things that did not happen the way they were supposed to that thwarted efforts to prevent a gunnell from opening fire from an unsecured roof.
A five-page summary of a still-unpublished report lays bare the cascading and far-flung shortcomings that preceded the July 13 shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, at which Trump took a bullet meant for somebody else in the ear.
Those include a lack of clear guidance from the Secret Service to local law enforcement, the failure to correct line-of-sight vulnerabilities at the rally grounds that left Trump exposed to sniper fire and "complacency" among some agents, according to Ronald Rowe Jr., the agency's acting director.
Though the botched response has been documented widely in congressional testimony, news media investigations and other public statements, this Friday's summary document represents perhaps the Secret Service's most official attempt to chronicle the mistakes of the day and comes as the agency remains under new and fresh scrutiny following Sunday's arrest of a man who authorities say stalked Trump at a Florida golf course.
This was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service. It's important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this again, Rowe said at a news conference accompanying the release of the summary. The full document is still being finalized.
The report describes a series of "communications deficiencies" before the shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper after firing eight rounds in Trump's direction from the roof of a building less than 150 yards from where Trump was speaking. That building had been identified as a possible hazard before the event, Rowe said, yet officials didn't take proper steps to correct the potential problems.
"Line-of-sight problems were identified, but mitigated inadequately. On the day of the visit, line-of-sight problems occurred, but they were not brought up to their [supervisor's] attention Rowe said. "While some members of the advanced party were being very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols."
Among other issues: Some local police at the scene did not know that there were two communications centers located on the premises, thus officers did not know that Secret Service personnel were not receiving their radio calls.
Furthermore, law enforcement over-ferried on cellular devices and not on radio frequencies to share critical information. Because the officers were looking for Crooks before the shooting took place, details being transmitted were done "via mobile/cellular devices in staggered or fragmented fashion" instead of through the Secret Service network.
"The failure of personnel to broadcast via radio the description of the assailant, or vital information received from local law enforcement regarding a suspicious individual on the roof of the AGR complex, to all federal personnel at the Butler site inhibited the collective awareness of all Secret Service personnel," the report said. That's an acronym for AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where the rally was held.
That would have been particularly difficult for Trump's protective detail, "who were not apprised of how focused state and local law enforcement were in the minutes leading up to the attack on locating the suspicious subject." Had they known, the report says, they could have made the decision to relocate Trump while the search for the gunman was in progress.
This report does raise more serious questions about why no law enforcement were stationed on the roof Crooks climbed onto before opening fire.
A local tactical team was stationed on the second floor of a structure in the complex from which Crooks fired. Several law-enforcement agencies raised questions about the team's placement, "yet there was no follow-up discussion," the report says, as to that placement. There was no discussion with the Secret Service about placing a team on the roof, even though snipers from local law-enforcement agencies "were apparently not opposed to that location.".
That tactical team on the second floor of the building had not communicated with the Secret Service prior to the rally. This team apparently had been brought in by a local police department to help staff the event, the report notes-unbeknownst to the Secret Service.
Well before, the rally site, chosen for the Trump event because it would accommodate a large number of desired attendees, was known to be a security concern because of lines of sight that might be exploited by a would-be attacker. Still, said the report, on July 13 no security precautions were taken to address those concerns, and the Secret Service lacked detailed knowledge about the local law enforcement support that even would be in place.
The executive summary of the report does not identify any specific individual who may be held responsible and does not state that any employee has been disciplined; however, at least five Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty, the Associated Press reported earlier. At least one week after the shooting occurred, the director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned, citing full responsibility for the failure.
The Secret Service is one of several investigations, including one by Congress, as well as a watchdog probe by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general's office.
Rowe has highlighted both that July shooting and Sunday's incident in which 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after Secret Service agents detected a rifle poking through shrubbery lining the West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course where Trump was playing, as reasons for a paradigm shift in how the agency protects public officials.
Trump, he said, is receiving the "highest levels" of protection and the Secret Service response in Florida was an example of procedures working as they should.
Read also| Russia to increase drone production 10-fold in 2024, says Putin
