Approximately 30 seconds before shots were fired at Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., last month, a local police officer reportedly had radioed about a man with a gun.
This critical information did not reach the Secret Service at the time because their agents were stationed at a different command post and did not have access to the same radio traffic, reported NBC News.
“That was unique,” Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting director of the Secret Service, said Friday. “We have to rethink where we put our security rooms and we are in fact doing that now moving forward.”
The revelation highlights a key unanswered question from the July 13 assassination attempt: Why wasn’t Trump removed from the stage after police spotted a gunman on a rooftop less than 150 yards away?
The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, began shooting minutes into Trump’s speech, injuring the former president, killing one person, and wounding two others, NBC News added.
In the wake of the incident, the Secret Service has faced intense scrutiny. Initially, they were criticized for failing to secure the building used by the gunman, with the Secret Service initially blaming local law enforcement but later acknowledging their responsibility.
Earlier this week, Rowe revealed a crucial 30-second gap between when police spotted Crooks and when he opened fire.
Rowe detailed communication failures, noting that Secret Service agents and local partners were stationed in separate command posts, hindering coordination.
“It is plainly obvious to me that we didn’t have access to certain information,” Rowe said. “Not by anybody’s fault. It just so happened that there was a sense of urgency [on the radio, and] that there might have been radio traffic that we missed. We have to do a better job of that,” NBC News added.
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