US Secret Service chief says local police warned about shooter in Trump attack

The acting director of the U.S. Secret Service said Friday that local Pennsylvania police warned there was a gunman on a rooftop, before the assassination attempt of July 13 against Donald Trump, but the message did not reach his agents in time.

Local authorities and Secret Service agents were using different communication channels, preventing the warning from coming before the 20-year-old gunman opened fire on the Republican presidential candidate, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters.

“In the last 30 seconds — which has been the focus of what happened before the shooter opened fire — there were clearly radio transmissions that could have occurred on that local radio network that we didn’t have,” Rowe said.

Rowe said the FBI, the agency leading the criminal investigation into the shooting, is working to determine exactly what was communicated. But Rowe said investigators believe “there was someone who actually radioed that they saw the individual with a gun.”

A local police officer confronted the gunman on the roof of the industrial building, where he eventually opened fire. But the officer, who had been relieved by a colleague, fell to the ground about 30 seconds before the gunman began shooting, law enforcement officials previously said.

At the time the shots rang out, the Secret Service knew local police were dealing with a problem on the outskirts of the event, but they were unaware a gun was involved, Rowe said.

In his testimony before Congress on Tuesday, Rowe had blamed local police for the failure and also said he was “embarrassed” by the security lapse that occurred on the day of the shooting. Rowe also noted that the Secret Service had not been present at a command post set up by local police in Butler, Pennsylvania, for the former president’s outdoor campaign rally.

The first shooting of a U.S. president or major-party presidential candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led to the resignation of former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle last week under bipartisan pressure from Congress.

Authorities have said 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired the shots that injured Trump’s right ear, killed one rally-goer and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle, before law enforcement snipers shot and killed him.

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