Video shows shooter at Trump rally moments before assassination attempt-WBNS 10TV
BETHEL PARK, Pa. − A local police officer was hoisted by his partner to the roof of the building where he spotted a gunman moments before the start of the deadly shooting at former President Donald Trump‘s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a local law enforcement official said Tuesday.
Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told Reuters the gunman, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, saw the officer and pointed his rifle at him before the officer, holding to the roof’s edge, dropped down to safety. Slupe, who said the officer was unable to use his gun under the circumstances, said Crooks quickly opened fire toward Trump, who was speaking in the Butler Farm Show grounds about 150 yards away on Saturday.
Trump was wounded, one attendee was killed, and two others were critically wounded. Secret Service snipers then fatally shot Crooks, the agency’s director has said. The Secret Service issued a statement Tuesday saying the agency was “deeply grateful” to local police officers for their efforts — and denied blaming local authorities for the attack.
In an interview Monday on ABC News, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said local police had been in the building and were “responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.” The statement drew criticism from Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, who said all officers at the scene acted “heroically.”
“This is a failure at the management or command level who failed to secure an obvious weakness in the security of this event,” Yoes said in a statement.
The Secret Service, in a statement early Tuesday, appeared to walk back the blame.
“We are deeply grateful to the officers who ran toward danger to locate the gunman and to all our local partners for their unwavering commitment,” the agency’s statement read. “Any news suggesting the Secret Service is blaming local law enforcement for Saturday’s incident is simply not true.”
The sheriff of Butler County, Pennsylvania, has defended the local police officers who confronted Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Trump from a rooftop at a political rally on Saturday, as heroes.
Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told the New York Post that the officers who interrupted Crooks just before he fired multiple shots toward the former president likely provided enough of a distraction to save Trump’s life.
“If I’m interrupted, and I move my gun, you are going to have to reassess that whole situation at this point, so yes, you can make a case that those two officers saved the president’s life,” Slupe said.
Both federal and local law enforcement have been criticized over the security lapse following the shooting, with some sparring between the U.S. Secret Service and the Fraternal Order of Police.
As the crowd outside Trump’s rally pointed and screamed that there was a suspicious individual with a gun on the roof of a building, local police arrived to search the perimeter, though were unable to spot the person on the roof from their ground-level vantage point, Butler Township Manager Thomas Knights previously told Fox News Digital.
With no easy way to climb onto the roof, Knights said one officer boosted another officer high enough to grab hold of the edge of the building’s roof, which was 12 feet above the ground. As the officer lifted himself up, Knights said he “did observe an individual on the roof,” who “was identified as having a weapon” and “did point that firearm at our officer.”
As Crooks pointed the firearm at the officer, the officer ducked his head, losing his grip on the roof’s edge and falling about eight feet to the ground, spraining his ankle, the township manager said.
Slupe told the New York Post that “timing is everything,” and the interruption to the shooter bought Trump the seconds he needed to miraculously turn his head so that the bullet struck only his ear.
“Can you imagine 10 seconds before that?” the sheriff asked. “That the president was looking straight ahead and where that bullet could have potentially landed.”
Slupe, however, agreed that there was an overall security failure at the event.
“You’d have to be stupid not to admit there was a failure,” he told the Post, adding that local police did the job that was asked of them.
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Source: Fox News
