Task Force Details Failures That Led To Trump Shooting Attempt

The Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump released a 53-page report of its investigation into what it describes as “stunning security failures” that led to the deadly July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left Corey Comperatore dead and of three people injured, including Trump.

The report shows the Secret Service and local law enforcement were not communicating well and gave little thought to the neighboring property within view of the stage. The report also offers a detailed timeline of the shooter’s movements before he climbed onto an exterior air conditioner unit and hoisted himself onto the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building.

The task force is led by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., who serves the district that includes Butler. Preliminary findings are based on information from witnesses who testified at a task force hearing, a series of briefings from the Secret Service and FBI, and 23 voluntary, transcribed witness interviews of state and local law enforcement officials, plus thousands of pages of documents in response to requests to federal, state, and local agencies. Kelly also issued three subpoenas to obtain sensitive documents from local agencies in Pennsylvania.

The investigation found the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, spent about 20 minutes casing the Butler farm show complex grounds on July 7, about a week before the rally.

On the day of the rally, July 13, Crooks bought a ladder at Home Depot in Bethel Park around 9:30 a.m., then drove to Butler and stayed at the rally site for about 70 minutes before driving back to Bethel Park. At some point he abandoned that ladder in a wooded area in Bethel Park.

“According to the FBI, at approximately [1:30 p.m.] Crooks’ father gave him the firearm that would later be used in the assassination attempt,” the report said. “The firearm was legally transferred to Crooks by his father the year prior. Crooks told his father that he was going to a local gun range, as he had done many times previously. Crooks then bought 50 rounds of ammunition at Allegheny Arms & Gun Works at approximately [1:54 p.m.]”

Around 3:45 p.m. Crooks returned to the Butler Farm Show property where he flew a drone over the site for 11 minutes. The drone’s flight path allowed Crooks to use the camera to assess the view of the stage and podium approximately 200 yards away, the report said. 

“Members of local law enforcement place Crooks in the vicinity of the AGR complex at or around [5:26 p.m.] but digital evidence subsequently showed Crooks was in fact near the Farm Show air strip at that time, walking past a row of vendors outside the secure perimeter approximately a half mile away from the AGR property.”

Independently, three local law enforcement officers noticed Crooks around 5 p.m., and each told the task force that he seemed suspicious. He was not dressed in typical rally gear, he was not watching what was happening inside the fenced area, he kept looking up at a window where local snipers were stationed.

Each time, law enforcement lost sight of Crooks, but after comparing notes on his description with one another, they started to look for him in the crowd.

At 5:15 Crooks was seen with a rangefinder.

The report says “Emergency Services Unit Witness 3” sent a text message and photographs of Crooks to a group of local snipers, describing him.

Around 6 p.m., Crooks was seen standing beside a picnic table with a backpack on the ground, and soon he “grabbed that backpack, and then he took off running,” Emergency Services Unit Witness 3 testified. That was around 6:06 p.m.

The witness got on his radio and reported that he saw the suspect run in between the buildings and could not see him anymore. Butler Township Police Department personnel in the area heard the radio call and several officers left their posts to look for Crooks.

Video from a local business showed Crooks climbing to the roof using air conditioners units in the back of the AGR building, and video shows him moving from one roof to another in the AGR complex. 

“Bystanders also saw Crooks pulling himself up to the roof and taking position,” The report said. “Several called the police, while others attempted to get the attention of police on the ground.”

“Butler Township Police Department Witness 2” radioed, “someone’s on the roof,” to all officers in the area.

‘He pointed his firearm in my face’

This brought another Butler Police officer, Witness 4, and another law enforcement officer to the building where they saw Crooks running on the roof. Witness 4 decided to go after Crooks and was getting hoisted onto the roof by a colleague when he first learned that Crooks had a gun.  

As his eyes were lifted high enough to see the roof, he saw Crooks.

“He just slowly turned on his waist, like … he kind of slowly turned around,” the witness said. “And as I came up, that’s when he pointed his firearm in my face. And at that time, I could see, you know, he had a bookbag with him, I could see mags. I knew he had a long gun, like an AR platform. And as I’m coming up and he’s got the gun pointed at me, I don’t know if I reach for my gun, if I slip, but all I know from that point is I’m looking at him, and all my weight is on my, like, arms, my hands, and I don’t have a grip.”

“The next thing I know is, I’m smack against the ground and fall. And from there, I just start yelling out to the guys that are there, I yell on the radio right away. I start saying, you know, South end, He’s got a long gun, Male on the roof. I just kept repeating, He’s got a gun, He’s got a long gun. I’m telling the guys that are around, like, He’s right up there, guns up, eyes up, still screaming on the radio.”

To date, the Task Force has not received any evidence to suggest that message reached the Secret Service before shots were fired. The fact that Crooks was armed was reported out via the local patrol radio channel, the report said.

At 6:11 p.m., Crooks fired eight rounds into the crowd. He had been on the roof about six minutes.

Butler Emergency Services Unit Witness 5 told the Task Force he was the first law enforcement officer to return fire at Crooks and he believes he shot Crooks.  

On July 15, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said “A Secret Service counter sniper team neutralized the shooter.”

“While the exact order of shots remains unclear, testimony from local law enforcement states that they took a shot in Crooks’ direction, which may have caused Crooks to stop firing,” the report said.

The report also found there was inadequate planning and coordination before the rally between the Secret Service and its local law enforcement partners.

The (AGR) building the shooter stood on and the surrounding area were not part of the secure perimeter. Onlookers in that area did not go through metal detectors despite being approximately 150 yards from where Trump was speaking.

Local sniper teams inside the AGR complex had a narrow field of vision from inside the building and were not positioned to monitor the AGR property.

There was no unified command post to facilitate communications between the Secret Service and its state and local partners. There were two command posts on the day of the event. Though the Secret Service command post could have accommodated more people, key local law enforcement partners were in a separate trailer in a separate part of the property, and there was no dedicated radio link between law enforcement in the two posts. That was not the norm according to former Secret Service Agent Patrick Sullivan, who told the task force it was “very unusual” to have separate command posts during a visit.

“Normally, there will be an overall command post for the entire visit,” Sullivan said, in the report. “Then each site will have what’s called a security room, where radio traffic pertinent to that individual site is controlled. And the command post, the overall command post should be the state, local police, Secret Service, and other federal partners that may be assisting. So, this is very unusual the way it turned out here at this site.”

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.