By Andrew Hay, Ted Hesson and Jonathan Landay
(Reuters) – The gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump fired from a rooftop that the U.S. Secret Service had declared to be outside its security perimeter — a fatal omission that the agency should not have made, according to two of its former officials.
Two local Pennsylvania police officers who went to check out a dispatch call of a suspicious person in the area were alone when one of them, hoisted up by a partner to check the roof, was confronted by the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe said in an interview.
That exposed a major hole in the security, said Kenneth Valentine, a former Secret Service special agent in charge: “He shouldn’t have been able to get up on the roof.”
Valentine said the agency also should have had someone watching the rooftops and able to stop the threat as the next line of defense.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for Trump’s safety as both a former president and the Republican presidential candidate, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But since the shooting it has said the building roughly 150 yards (140 m) from the stage where Trump spoke fell outside the area it had secured for the outdoor event, and local and state police said it was not their responsibility.
That oversight allowed Crooks to access the roof unimpeded and fire directly at Trump, grazing his ear, killing a rallygoer and wounding two other attendees.
“The Secret Service said the building was outside the perimeter. That’s not true. That should have been within the perimeter,” said a former Secret Service agent in an interview. “This is a massive failure.”
Both former Secret Service officials said the agency should have identified the building as a security risk and taken responsibility that it could not be accessed.
President Joe Biden has ordered an independent review of how the gunman could have come so close to killing Trump despite the heavy security provided at Saturday’s event in Butler, Pennsylvania. The agency also faces probes from Congress.
Slupe told Reuters that Butler County sheriff’s deputies were not responsible for security inside or outside the perimeter.
The Pennsylvania State Police, which helped to staff the event, likewise said it was not responsible for securing the building, owned by packaging equipment company AGR International.
Police in Butler Township, where the rally took place, did not respond to a request for comment.
AGR officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Slupe told Reuters that local police officers from Butler Township responded to reports of a suspicious person seen walking in the area. Officers were sent a picture of the individual but were not told he was armed, the said.
Slupe said Trump would not have been allowed to take the stage if police knew there was a suspicious individual on the roof.
“Listen, if he was on the roof, right, and we got that information and I heard that, I would never have let that president walk out onto that catwalk,” Slupe said in a phone interview.
Slupe said one of the officers was hoisted by another onto the roof, where the shooter turned around and pointed his rifle at him, Slupe said. The officer dropped back down to the ground. Crooks opened fire on the president shortly afterward, he said.
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
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