Local law enforcement alerted the U.S. Secret Service about a suspicious person before the shooting at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month, according to the chief of the Pennsylvania State Police.
During questioning at the House Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris disclosed new details about the security lapse that led to the assassination attempt on former President Trump. The incident resulted in one death and two injuries.
Col. Christopher Paris stated that the Butler County Emergency Services Unit had a text thread discussing the suspected gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, and had reported him as a suspicious person before the incident.
“At some point when he utilized the range-finder, the suspicion was heightened,” Col. Paris said of Crooks. He said that State Police got a call and a text from the emergency services unit about the suspected gunman’s activity and told the Secret Service.
State Police officials had “verbally turned right around and gave it to the Secret Service” at a local command post for security, Col. Paris said, adding, “My understanding was that he was milling about and he stood out to them because he never made his way to a point of ingress to the venue.”
The police chief also testified that two local law enforcement officers stationed in the building complex left to search for the suspect before the shooting. He added that he didn’t know if the officers would have seen Crooks climbing onto the roof of a nearby building had they stayed by the window.
A video taken by a lawmaker who visited the shooting site on Monday shows that a second-story window of the building had a clear view of the roof where Crooks opened fire. However, it was unclear if the video captured the window where the officers had been stationed.
“When the one local officer hoisted the other one up, and subsequently falls,” Col. Paris said, adding Crooks was “already, I believe, close to being in his final position there. And I’m told it’s—again, sequence of events, not a timeline based on the prior criteria laid out—but seconds after that is when the first shots rang up.”
In the days after the shooting, the FBI said that Crooks, 20, had acted alone. No other suspects have been detained, and no other arrests have been made.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position on Tuesday after a bipartisan group of lawmakers demanded her resignation.
On Monday, she faced hours of questioning by the House Oversight Committee but revealed few details about the Secret Service’s preparations or what the agency knows about the incident.
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