Many everyday Americans and Republican members of Congress are questioning how the Secret Service failed to prevent a 20-year-old man from scaling a building with a rifle just 150 yards from a former President of the United States and a leading candidate in the 2024 presidential race.
Embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle made a shocking admission to ABC News on Monday as she attempted to explain why an agent was not positioned on top or near a rooftop adjacent to President Trump’s rally on Saturday, where a gunman nearly took his life, and killed an innocent rally attendee.
In her interview with ABC News, Cheatle accepted responsibility but also appeared to blame local law enforcement for failing to secure the rooftop, located about 400 feet from the stage where President Trump held his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Republican leader narrowly escaped certain death when a high-caliber rifle round grazed his ear as he turned his head at the last second. Cheatle explained that she chose not to place an agent on the roof due to its sloped incline.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she told ABC News, according to the Daily Mail. “And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”
From his vantage point, Crooks was able to aim his AR-15 rifle at President Trump and fire eight shots before a Secret Service sniper finally took him out. Cheatle confirmed that Crooks had been identified as a “potential person of suspicion” but declined to explain why the Secret Service did not consider him an imminent threat that day.
“The shooter was actually identified as a potential person of suspicion,” Cheatle said. “Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of how things unfolded, by the time that individual was eventually located, they were on the rooftop and were able to fire off at the former president.”
Director Cheatle has said the reason they didn’t put Secret service on the roof, 130 yards away from the stage was because side it was too dangerous due the roofs slope. So she’s clearly lying. The roof was less steep than the ones snipers were stationed on. pic.twitter.com/Dfr39mYXMM
— Max_Fender3 (@Max_Fender3) July 16, 2024
New details have emerged, revealing that a team of local police snipers was inside the building when Crooks opened fire.
A report from CNN cited law enforcement officials, who said Crooks bought a ladder from Home Depot on the day he tried to assassinate Trump from the roof of a nearby building.
From the CNN report:
On Friday, he went to a shooting range where he was a member, and practiced firing, a law enforcement official told CNN. The next morning, Crooks went to a Home Depot, where he bought a five-foot ladder, and a gun store, where he purchased 50 rounds of ammunition, the official said.
Despite being deemed “suspicious,” Crooks managed to evade police and the Secret Service three times, and carrying a very tall ladder at one point, and could have been on the roof for up to 30 minutes before he fired.
The actions of the Secret Service and local police are inexcusable. If Secret Service agents are truly trained to take a bullet for the President, they should be able to station themselves on a slightly slanted roof.
Additionally, you can clearly see from the viral pictures of the snipers who took Crooks out, that they are positioned on a roof that is, in fact, sloped.
Take a look:
🚨🇺🇸USSS DIRECTOR: SNIPERS WEREN’T ON THE ROOF BECAUSE IT’S SLOPED
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 16, 2024
USSS Director Kim Cheatle on why there weren’t snipers on the roof from which Trump was shot:
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point.
And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that… pic.twitter.com/qDOC1IdocZ
