US intelligence is investigating how a man armed with an AR-style rifle was able to get close enough shoot and hurt Former President Donald Trump at a gathering Saturday in Pennsylvania, in a devastating failure of one of the agency’s core tasks.
The FBI identified the shooter on Sunday as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
The shooter, who authorities say was killed by members of the secret service, fired several shots at the scene from an “elevated position outside the rally site,” the agency said.
An Associated Press analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos taken at Trump’s rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get surprisingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted on social media and geotagged by the AP shows Crooks’ body lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump’s rally was held. Another image shows Crooks wearing a gray T-shirt with a black American flag on his right arm, with a bloody wound to his head.
The rooftop was less than 150 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance at which a good sniper could reasonably hit a man-sized target. For reference, 150 yards is the distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a man-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-style rifle, like the one used by the shooter at the Trump rally, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M16.
President Joe Biden said Sunday he had requested an independent assessment of security at the rally.
Biden also asked the U.S. Secret Service to review all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee. Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service’s coordinator for the convention, told reporters later that the agency was satisfied with what she called the overall planning for the Republican convention.
Biden urged Americans not to speculate about the shooter’s motives. He said investigators were working quickly to probe the attack.
“Unity is the most difficult goal to achieve,” he said, but “nothing is more important than that right now.”
Calls for an investigation have been made from all sides.
Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday raising questions about the shooting and requesting information about the former president’s Secret Service protection.
“The gravity of this security failure and this frightening moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated,” Green wrote.
The Secret Service had no speaker at a Saturday night news conference where FBI and Pennsylvania State Police officials briefed reporters on the investigation into the shooting. FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek said it was “surprising” that the shooter was able to fire shots at the scene before being killed.
Members of the Secret Service’s anti-sniper team and counter-attack team were present at the rally, according to two law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation.
The heavily armed Counter-Strike Team, codenamed “Hawkeye” in the Secret Service, is tasked with eliminating threats so that other agents can protect and take away the person they are protecting. The Counter-Sniper Team, codenamed “Hercules,” uses long-range binoculars and is equipped with sniper rifles to deal with long-range threats.
Mayorkas said his department and the Secret Service are working with law enforcement to investigate the shooting. Ensuring the security of presidential candidates and their campaign events is one of the department’s “most vital priorities,” he said.
“We condemn this violence in the strongest terms and commend the Secret Service for its swift response today,” Mayorkas said. “We are in contact with President Biden, former President Trump, and their campaigns, and are taking every step possible to ensure their safety.”
Green also noted reports that the Secret Service had rejected requests for additional security from the Trump campaign. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said X As of Sunday, those allegations were “absolutely false” and they had added resources and technology as campaign travel increased.
Green said he would speak with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Sunday.
Former Secret Service agents told the AP that Crooks should never have been allowed onto the roof and that the agency will have to determine how it happened. They said such a breach could have been caused by agents negligent in their duties or a flaw in the event’s security plan.
The agency “is going to have to look at the security plan and interview a number of people, from the director down” to determine what happened, said Stephen Colo, who retired in 2003 as deputy director after a 27-year career with the department.
Colo said presidential candidates and former presidents typically don’t get the same level of protection as the sitting president. In fact, Colo said he was surprised the agency staffed the event with a team of countersnipers. Such a valuable resource (there aren’t many of these highly trained agents) is typically reserved for the president. Candidates don’t typically get such teams.
Timothy McCarthy, a former agent who retired from the agency in 1994, said the Secret Service “had better do a thorough investigation of what happened there and do whatever it takes to figure it out” because the shooter should not have been able to occupy such a vantage point.
“How did this person get on this building?” asked McCarthy, 75, who in 1981 was shot when President Ronald Reagan was gunned down outside the Washington building. Hilton Hotel. “How did this happen? I mean, this is the key to the whole thing. And what measures were put in place to prevent it?”
James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and asked Cheatle to appear at a hearing. Comer said his committee would send a formal invitation soon.
“Political violence in any form is un-American and unacceptable. Questions are being asked and Americans are demanding answers,” Comer said in a statement.
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, called for an investigation into “security failures” at the rally.
“The federal government must constantly learn from security failures to avoid repeating them, especially when those failures have implications for the nation,” Torres said.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, posted on X that he and his staff were in contact with security planning coordinators ahead of the Republican National Convention Hostilities are scheduled to begin Monday in Milwaukee. “We cannot be a country that accepts political violence in any form — that’s not who we are as Americans,” Evers said.
The FBI said it would lead the investigation into the shooting, working with the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department “will bring all available resources to bear on this investigation.”
“My thoughts are with the former president, the injured, and the family of the bystander killed in this horrific attack,” Garland said in a statement. “We will not tolerate violence of any kind, and such violence is an attack on our democracy.”
