A shocking report recently detailed how a catastrophic lack of communication channels between the Secret Service and local law enforcement may have facilitated the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to shoot at Trump from an elevated position with a rifle at a campaign rally on July 13 in Butler County, Pennsylvania. While Crooks only managed to shoot the former president in the ear, he wounded two other rally attendees and killed a third.
The fallout over what turned out to be one of the most epic security failures in Secret Service history led to the agency director’s resignation and numerous revelations concerning unbelievable lapses in judgment, such as allowing the shooter to conduct reconnaissance with a drone just hours before the attack.
The latest revelations indicate that there were seemingly no reliable inter-agency communication channels. Local law enforcement officials reportedly identified Crooks as a suspicious character at the rally about half an hour before the shooting but were apparently unable to relay that information to Secret Service agents.
Here’s some of what Fox News reported on these revelations:
Newly reported transcripts of law enforcement communications at the Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump rally depict a communications structure that essentially isolated local and federal law enforcement from each other at key times.
Communications reported Sunday by the Washington Post also highlight the effect spotty cellular service in the rural Allegheny Valley purportedly had on preventing transmission of key messages like an officer’s photo of then-suspicious individual Thomas Crooks.
According to encrypted radio communications obtained by the newspaper, at 5:42 p.m. ET on July 13, a counter-sniper from a local law enforcement agency alerted that a “younger White male [with] long hair” was “lurking” around the AGR glass company building adjacent to the Butler Farm Show grounds – but had since disappeared from view.
Within a half-hour, that suspicious individual – Thomas Crooks – would fire shots at former President Trump from atop that low-rise building and kill a local firefighter in the process.
However, that local officer’s warning would go unheard by U.S. Secret Service because the transmission went to a trailer from which local police commanders were operating – separate from the president’s detail, the paper reported, citing Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger and a separate law enforcement source.
According to the Post, the police commander in the trailer telephoned a Pennsylvania state trooper to pass the message along.
There were at least three other key moments when communications had to be transmitted by cellphone, at a venue where – like sporting events – crowds often overwhelm the frequency.