A Secret Service counter-drone operator was still searching online for the location of the rooftop where President Trump’s would-be assassin had been seen as gunfire erupted during the July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a Department of Homeland Security inspector general report released Thursday.
The report found that the Secret Service “missed multiple opportunities to detect, prevent, and disrupt” Thomas Crooks’ attempted assassination of Trump. Among the most serious failures, investigators said, were breakdowns in communication that left the president’s protective detail unaware that an armed man had reached the roof of the American Glass Research International (AGR) complex, just 155 yards from the stage.
At 6:09 p.m., local law enforcement contacted the Secret Service and Pennsylvania State Police communications room to alert them to “a suspicious person on the AGR complex’s roof,” the sharply critical DHS report states.
But the Secret Service communications room supervisor and the agency’s counter-drone operator “did not ask for the AGR complex’s location” and “did not immediately identify it as a risk,” according to the 64-page report. The supervisor also did not “recall learning that the suspicious person was on the roof,” investigators wrote, because he had assigned the matter to the counter-drone operator during what he described as a “busy time” on Secret Service radio channels. The operator, who was seated nearby, had offered to assist.
Unclear where the rooftop was in relation to the rally grounds, the Secret Service counter-drone operator appears to have turned to Google for answers.
“Instead of asking local law enforcement personnel for the AGR complex’s location, the counter drone operator searched online for it, and was still searching when Crooks fired his first shots,” the report found.
At 6:11 p.m. — only two minutes after the Secret Service was alerted that a gunman was on the building’s roof — Crooks fired eight rounds toward Trump, grazing his ear, injuring others and killing one rally attendee.
“Ultimately, although members of the local law enforcement communications room were increasingly concerned by the presence of a suspicious individual as early as 5:42 p.m.,” the report said, “Secret Service communications room personnel did not identify Crooks as an urgent threat before he fired shots.”
“Moreover, Secret Service decision-makers responsible for protecting President Trump while on stage at the Butler event were not made aware of Crooks’ presence at any time.”
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The agency’s failure to establish a joint communications room with local law enforcement – which was receiving reports about a suspicious person at the rally later identified as Crooks – resulted in 102 radio transmissions about the gunman going unheard by Secret Service personnel.
A 5:42 p.m., radio transmission from local law enforcement warning, “we had a younger white male long hair lurking around the AGR building, he was viewed with a rangefinder sighting the stage … we lost sight of him,” was among several increasingly frantic communications that went unheard by Secret Service.
“I have someone on the roof with white shorts,” local cops radioed at 6:08 p.m.
“He’s armed, I saw him. He’s laying down,” an officer radioed at 6:11 p.m., just moments before Crooks opened fire, followed by, “You need to deploy to the AGR building … male on the roof with a long gun. Shots fired!”
Secret Service received only five phone calls and three text messages about Crooks, according to the report.
“As a result, Secret Service members did not alert President Trump’s protective detail about concerns of a suspicious person,” the findings concluded.
The report also found Trump’s campaign staff waved off Secret Service from positioning trucks between the AGR building and the stage ahead of the rally over concerns it would block cameras.
“On July 12, 2024 … the site agent counterpart told us she proposed placing the trucks between the AGR complex and the stage, but protectee staff denied the request because the trucks would be ‘too close to [President Trump’s] press shot,’” the DHS report found.
“The site agent counterpart then proposed moving the trucks to a nearby location instead, which would block line of sight from a different area; protectee staff agreed.”
Crooks was shot and killed by law enforcement at the rally shortly after he opened fire.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
