New bodycam footage confirms that Secret Service agents were warned before the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
In the footage, which is from after the shooting, Secret Service agents and police officers can be heard discussing a suspect who was seen by a Beaver County sniper named Greg. They confirm that the shooter, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, was indeed the same person whom the sniper had identified.
A police officer points to a rifle that can be seen lying on the roof and says, “Rifle’s right there, obviously.”
They note the location of the sniper who identified the suspect, pointing to a window in the building next door. Agents then discuss how the sniper originally saw Crooks come from a bike and put a bookbag down but then lost sight of him. There is no discussion of why nothing was done to alert former President Donald Trump about the situation. They review the photos sent to their smartphones by the sniper to make sure that they are all speaking about the same person and note that Crooks was wearing glasses.
The law enforcement officers then discuss someone who was detained and erroneously identified as the owner of the bike, but who did not match the suspect in the images that had been sent by the sniper. In just another example of the poor communication between law enforcement authorities that day, the police officers tell the Secret Service agent that they do not know anything about the person who was detained because they have been up on the roof and clearly uninformed about what was happening elsewhere on the ground.
The agents and police then discuss civilians who were seen alternatively filming the suspect and the law enforcement officers and then running away after the shots were fired. These persons were detained out of concern that they might have been involved, despite the Secret Service agent commenting that running away from gunfire was a natural response.
When asked about the footage in an interview on Fox News, Sen. Marc Rubio (R-FL) called it “a massive systemic failure.” He expressed shock that the Secret Service was using a text messaging group “instead of [communicating] in real time” in such a situation where there were known threats to a former president.
Rubio noted that the only reason Trump was alive was because the shooter was not professionally trained. According to Rubio, the failures that took place on July 13 were not “a one-off” event but reflective of the sloppiness with which Trump has been protected all along.
In another video shot by rallygoer Jon Malis and obtained by Fox News, attendees can be heard shouting, “Let’s get out of here! He’s got a gun on the roof,” as they begin running away. Seconds later, eight shots can be heard, after which approximately 11 seconds pass before the kill shot from the sniper can be heard. A freeze frame from the video shows Crooks pointing his rifle at Malis and others who were also filming him.
“I noticed about two minutes before the shooting started, the people were starting to say, ‘Hey, he’s climbing up here, he’s crawling around, he’s doing this, he’s doing that,” Malis told Fox. “We just kind of ignored it because we thought it was some person trying to get a better view.”
“One of the first things I noticed when we walked up, none of us have been vetted,” Malis added. “We’re all along the fence. We all have [a] view of the stage. We can see Trump.”
Fox News reports on the new bodycam footage and what it reveals. Here’s the start of the story:
Body camera footage recorded during the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former President Trump showed law enforcement discussing how a sniper “lost sight” of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Sen. Chuck Grassely, R-Iowa, posted the three-minute video on social media Tuesday. The footage shows authorities on the roof of a building in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks was shot dead by snipers.
“Beaver County sniper seen and sent the pictures out. This is him,” one law enforcement officer tells another man, who appears to be a Secret Service agent, on the roof.
“Rifle’s right there, obviously,” another law enforcement officer says as he points at the weapon.
The first law enforcement officer, whose body camera was recording, said the sniper who spotted Crooks was still in a building nearby, showing where the sniper was located.“That’s the sniper who sent the original pictures and seen him come from the bike and then set the bag back down and then lost sight of him,” the officer said. “He’s the one who sent the pictures out. I don’t know if you got the same ones I did….”
Body camera video in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former President Trump shows law enforcement from different agencies speaking about deceased gunman Thomas Crooks and others detained at the scene. (Secret Service)
“I think I did, yeah,” the man who appears to be a Secret Service agent replied. “He’s got his glasses on….”
The footage was obtained from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, and Grassley posted it on X. Fox News Digital has blurred the image of the body.
The man who appears to be a Secret Service agent asked, “And we have somebody detained, correct?”