JULY 6
Crooks registers to attend the rally. The same day, he uses a search engine to look up how far away Lee Harvey Oswald was when he assassinated President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The distance: 90 yards.
An empty roof. A lurking suspect. A breakdown in communication. And ultimately, an emergency response that was not only dangerously delayed, but could have led to the assassination of one of the country's most powerful political figures.
Members of Congress are still investigating the disastrous rally of former President Donald Trump in which a lone gunman came within millimeters of fatally shooting the Republican nominee and irrevocably changing the 2024 race for the presidency.
A host of experts interviewed by the Post-Gazette say that both the Secret Service and local law enforcement were responsible for critical breakdowns that left the ex-president and thousands of his supporters vulnerable to a gunman perched just 150 yards away.
The breaches were striking, from the failure to post police on the rooftop to repeated sightings of the gunman without any effort to detain him — paving the way for 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to launch his fateful plan without any resistance, experts say.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Antonio Sanchez, a former Miami-Dade, FL police commander who has taken part in multiple protection teams with the Secret Service for presidential rallies in Florida. “There was no reason for this guy to be lurking around.”
A detailed timeline of events shows that at several key junctures, the shooting could have been averted — decisions that are now being investigated by Congress, the Secret Service and other members of the executive branch.
While local and federal agencies blamed each other for the mistakes, an analysis of the information that is emerging shows both sides fell short in following the protocols that have long been part of dignitary protection, security experts say.
Investigators are still trying to determine what drove Crooks to carry out the shooting of the 45th president, but he appears to have been preparing for an attack for months.
Starting more than a year ago, he used encrypted email accounts in foreign countries to buy gun parts and chemicals to make explosives, the FBI said. He frequented a local gun range and took shooting courses. After the Trump campaign announced the rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds on July 3, he picked his target.
Each day brought Crooks and Secret Service agents closer to their violent clash.
Crooks registers to attend the rally. The same day, he uses a search engine to look up how far away Lee Harvey Oswald was when he assassinated President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The distance: 90 yards.
Crooks drives to the farm show grounds an hour north of his home in Bethel Park and spends about 20 minutes surveilling the area.
The U.S. Secret Service conducts its first walk-through of the site as part of the crucial advance preparation that takes place before every presidential rally.
Security check: “The advance team is the architect that’s going to build the security,” said Gary McDaniel, a longtime Florida security expert who sets up protection plans for corporate executives. “And that’s where it failed.”
Crooks brings his AR-15 rifle to a shooting range — a lightweight semi-automatic that has been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in America, including the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It’s the same weapon he’ll bring to the rally the following day.
The Butler County Emergency Services Unit hosts a briefing for local law enforcement. The Secret Service is absent.
Security check: Secret Service is responsible for the event’s security — including making sure local officers know their roles and the overall protection plan. At least one unit, the Beaver County SWAT team, says its members never received a briefing from the federal agency. Though details are still emerging, acting agency director Ronald Rowe Jr. told members of Congress on Tuesday that his agents did brief the local tactical team leader, but it’s not clear whether all the planning details trickled down to every local police unit providing security that day.
Crooks arrives at the rally site in Butler County and spends about an hour in the area before driving home.
The sniper teams from the Secret Service set up their positions on rooftops behind the rally stage — but the units from Butler and Beaver counties are stationed inside a nearby building, on the second floor, rather than on the roof.
Security check: Elevated positions with a clear view of the stage should have been guarded by armed law enforcement officers to ensure the high-ground was covered — and to deter a potential shooter from even trying to take a position there, several experts said. “Whether you’re in a rally or a gunfight, you always control the high ground,” said Bill Carpenter, a retired Jefferson County, OH sheriff’s deputy and an Army-trained sniper who served on several dignitary protection teams for state and national politicians, including then-candidate Trump in 2016.
Crooks gets the rifle from his home. He tells his parents he’s going to the shooting range.
Crooks returns to the rally site in his Hyundai Sonata. In the car are two homemade explosive devices with detonators that can be remotely triggered.
Crooks begins flying a drone just outside the inner perimeter of the rally, possibly to scope out security. The flight lasts 11 minutes and comes within approximately 200 yards of the rally stage.
A SWAT operator leaving a building sees Crooks at a picnic table and alerts team members still inside. “He knows you guys are up there,” he texts them. But none of the officers approach him.
Security check: Experts say Crooks should have been immediately approached by law enforcement and ordered to turn over his identification. “If a SWAT team is watching a suspicious guy, it’s their responsibility to approach him — with the Secret Service. That person needs to be vetted immediately. It’s their responsibility to connect,” said Mr. Sanchez.
A Beaver County SWAT operator notices Crooks acting suspiciously and takes his photo. The sighting presents yet another opportunity for SWAT team officers to approach Crooks, but no such action takes place.
Security check: “There is absolutely no excuse for that,” said Mr. Carpenter, a Vietnam combat veteran who teaches police firearms training. Any suspicious person who was within 1,000 yards of the stage should have been checked, he said.
SWAT operators spot Crooks again, this time using a rangefinder — a scope that measures distance — and directing it toward the stage. But once again, he is not stopped and officers lose track of him.
Security check: “Many people in military and law enforcement know that rangefinders are used for a variety of reasons — including scoping out shooting targets,” said Mr. Sanchez. “Anyone who knows anything about rangefinders — people in law enforcement, the military — knows that they are used on sniper teams. If he’s not a shooter, he’s scoping out the situation [for the shooter]. At a minimum, if I see that — that guy is going to be approached immediately.” The fact that no one confronted the suspect is “unacceptable. That’s just incompetence.”
A SWAT officer notifies his teammates that he has texted photos of Crooks to the command staff.
Crooks is seen walking with a backpack near the industrial complex where the local SWAT team is stationed.
Command staff asks Beaver County SWAT team members where Crooks is heading. The answer: “Not sure. He was up against the building. If I had to guess towards the back. Away from the event.”
Trump moves onto the stage to address the thousands of rally-goers. He walks up a long ramp to the podium as music plays and the crowd erupts in cheers.
Security check: With all the sightings of the would-be shooter, and the suspicions raised — particularly by his use of a rangefinder — several experts say it was critical that the former president’s protective detail be fully informed about the sightings by the SWAT team members. That way, they could decide whether to allow the ex-president to take to the stage. At that point, however, the local SWAT team had lost track of Crooks and were unable to convey any specific information about his location. “The only thing we had was locals were working an issue at the president's 3 o’clock,” acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., told Congress at a hearing last week.
Trump begins speaking at the podium.
Crooks is caught on police dash-cam video as he moves across the interconnected rooftops of the industrial complex.
Rally-goers spot Crooks crawling on the rooftop where he will launch his attack, and begin yelling for police.
As local police move to investigate, it’s still not clear whether the Secret Service’s protective detail is told about the location of the gunman, who is just 200 yards or so from the ex-president.
A local police officer is boosted onto the roof to investigate. Crooks turns his rifle on the officer, who lets go and falls to the ground. Between 25 and 30 seconds later, Crooks opens fire in the direction of the former president, whose right ear is grazed by either a bullet or a fragment.
Trump drops to the stage as agents rush to cover him with their bodies. Three rally-goers are struck by the gunfire, including Corey Comperatore, 50, who is killed while shielding his own family members with his body.
A Secret Service sharpshooter returns fire, killing Crooks. Officers will later search his body and find a cell phone and a remote detonator for the explosives in his car.
Security check: During the crucial seconds that elapsed after the officer spotted Crooks, Secret Service agents were not told that there was a man with a rifle on the rooftop, said Mr. Rowe. “That information stayed in state and local channels and did not make it over to Secret Service,” he said. The Secret Service heard "nothing about man on the roof, nothing about man with a gun."
While details of the SWAT team’s sightings of Crooks emerged last week with the release of their text messages by Sen. Chuck Grassley, more information is expected to surface in the coming weeks about the string of security failures, experts said.
A key area of focus among investigators: whether the communications channels that are so important to dignitary protection were properly set up among every agency on the ground.
Other questions include whether local police were given too much autonomy to decide how to cover portions of the area outside the inner perimeter of the rally, including elevated surfaces.
Mr. McDaniel said the Secret Service should have identified the elevated surfaces at the rally site during its initial walk-through and ensured that the rooftops included armed officers.
“The vantage point [that Crooks assumed] was ideal, and should have been recognized,” he said.
Ed Cash, a security expert and member of former President George W. Bush’s advance team, said his team would usually travel to a site at least seven days before the event.
“Secret Service has to take the lead; they know the playbook,” he said. During a congressional hearing last week, Mr. Rowe said the Secret Service assumed that local police were holding down the area that later became the staging ground for the shooter.
“We made an assumption that there was going to be uniform presence out there,” Mr. Rowe told members of Congress. “I assure you: We’re not going to make that mistake again.”
Staff reporter Laura Esposito contributed to this story.
Mike Wereschagin: mwereschagin@post-gazette.com, @Wrschgn
Michael D. Sallah: msallah@post-gazette.com, @MikeSallah7
Mike Wereschagin
Michael D. Sallah
Laura Esposito
Laura Malt Schneiderman
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