The inescapable question that comes up from watching a new tranche of local police body cam video of the chaos before and after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is: Who was in charge, anyway? In recent congressional testimony, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said their people "assumed" that local cops would fill in to cover treacherous spots not monitored by the Secret Service. But that's not the story the cops on the ground were telling before and after the attack. It appears that the Secret Service left others to do its job.
In one video, Butler Township, Pa., police converge on the building seconds before the would-be assassin took eight shots close to where the president was speaking in the rural Pennsylvania town on July 13. The one officer we heard had been hoisted up to the roof to take a peek is the one you can hear in the following video.
More video from the Trump assassination attempt.
— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) August 8, 2024
If you have a link to the dashcam (part of it is in the video here but I know a longer version showing the moment Crooks starts shooting is out there...) please post it in the comments.
“I fucking told [the Secret Service] they… pic.twitter.com/sXgcMCcgq8
You may have seen some of the images before, but what you didn't hear before is the Butler Police officer angrily telling another officer that he informed the Secret Service to cover part of the building where they think the shooter got on the roof. In the video, they find out the shooter was killed.
Related: The Secret Service Lied About J6 Pipe Bomb Incident Too
Questions, shocked responses, and recriminations by law enforcement followed. Who was in charge, anyway?
In some of the video's dialogue, one cop asks the one wearing the body cam why no one was posted on the roof. He begins by telling the officer that the local cops were posted inside the building, not on the roof, and that he told the Secret Service the building needed to be better protected.
In another video, officers discussed why they weren't posted on the roof. The Wall Street Journal transcribed this part of the conversation, which occurred about ten minutes after shots were fired.
“I thought you guys were on the roof. I thought it was you. I thought it was you.”
“No,” came the reply, with an explanation that no officers were on the roof.
“What the f***,” the officer replied in frustration. “Why were we not on the roof? Why weren’t we?”
"Why weren't we," indeed. Here's more from a video that Fox News obtained.
"They were inside."
"Inside the building?"
"Why weren't we?"
"Because I thought we were going to post guys over here. I talked to the Secret Service and they said no problem, they're going to post guys over here."
Sotto voce to another guy: "I told the Secret Service to post a f***ing guy over here. I told them f***ing at the meeting on Tuesday."
Recall that we have heard multiple conflicting stories from the Secret Service about posting a person on the roof.
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What explains all the different stories?
- It was too hot, so no one was posted on the roof.
- The roof was too slanted, so no one was posted on the roof.
- We assumed that someone was posted on the roof.
- The building was not in the security perimeter because we assumed the locals would be posted on the roof.
- Local cops told Secret Service that they couldn't cover the roof.
The agent in charge of site security still has her job as of Rowe's testimony last week, but she's not available to explain the vast number of conflicting details.
- The president had his regular detail at the site.
- The president had a "full [security] package" at the site.
- The president's regular team was given a day off.
- The Homeland Security teams filled in for Secret Service personnel.
- There was only one counter-sniper team.
- There were two counter-sniper teams.
- There were no Secret Service counter-sniper teams.
- It was the first time Trump's detail had a team of Secret Service snipers.
- Trump Secret Service coverage was siphoned off to cover a Jill Biden event and another Joe Biden event in Pennsylvania on the same day.
- No agents were removed from Trump's detail to cover the Bidens.
- There was a command post.
- There were separate command posts for local and federal officers.
- There was a local Butler cop at the fed command center to facilitate communication.
After not including a building with a line of sight to the president in the security perimeter, the communications issues are the next biggest blunder.
In one video, an officer is upset upon learning that there is no radio communication with the Secret Service: "Before you motherf***ers came up here, I popped my head up there like an idiot by myself, dude," the officer who was boosted onto the roof says. "Then he turned around, and I f***ing dropped, and I started f***ing, I was calling out, ‘Bro, f***ing on top of the roof.’ F***ing, we’re not on the same frequency?"
There was no shared frequency between locals and the feds, which included armed Homeland Security Investigators and the Secret Service. Federal officers didn't use a radio and instead texted, Rowe testified.
Related: Secret Service Prep Before Trump Shooting Shows It Was a Clown Show
Were local cops covering their rears? Butler Police told the Secret Service before the event that they couldn't secure the building, according to KDKA in Pittsburgh. It doesn't change the fact that it's the Secret Service's responsibility to make sure the building—a mere 400 feet from the president—was guarded. "Assuming" it would be isn't an option in what we're told is a "no fail" mission. The Secret Service routinely depends on others the help with security, but did the agency cede most of its job to others?
Let's recap.
- One man was murdered.
- Two other victims were shot.
- A former president was nearly assassinated.
- No shared communication.
- No shared information with some officers who were not included in the Tuesday walk-through meeting.
- Some of Trump's detail were fill-ins.
- Incomplete intel on the shooter's detonator and apparent car bomb and the safety response.
- Secret Service informed local cops they couldn't secure the building well before the event.
- The building wasn't secured.
- Secret Service "assumed" the building would be secured.
- Nobody's been fired.
Did the Secret Service simply wish and pray that everything would be fine because Trump rallies were uniformly drama-free? Was Trump basically abandoned by the Secret Service, which left its job for others to do?
Said one officer overheard on the body cam in a moment of understatement, "I'd say this is a f*** up. Somebody f***ed up."
Well, that's one way to put it.
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