Secret Service and local law enforcement representatives said Sunday there are currently no plans to change the security measures for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.
Law enforcement officers reiterated their confidence in the security apparatus already in place, saying their security footprint will remain as planned despite Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“We’re not anticipating any changes to our operational security plans for this event,” said the Secret Service’s RNC coordinator, Audrey Gibson-Cicchino. She declined to answer several questions about Saturday’s events in Pennsylvania, citing her RNC-specific jurisdiction.
Gibson-Cicchino emphasized that the security planning in Milwaukee has been underway for 18 months and has already been designated the highest level of security event.
Pressed about specific threats to this week’s gathering, Michael Hensle, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Milwaukee, said that there is “no known specific articulated threat to the RNC during or any specific individual attendee” but that there are higher levels of online “chatter” about the assassination attempt.
During a separate press briefing earlier Sunday, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said the number of online threats of violence, which was already on the upswing, has risen since the attack.
Given the possibility of guns in the soft security perimeter around the Fiserv Forum arena where the RNC will take place, a consequence of Wisconsin’s open-carry laws, Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said the city is unable to restrict guns anywhere in Milwaukee under those state regulations.
“We as a city cannot legislate out of that,” Norman said of the state’s open-carry allowances, adding that from a “law enforcement aspect, we have to operate within those guidelines.”
Trump arrived in Milwaukee Sunday evening, his plane touching down some minutes before 6 p.m. local time. In a post earlier Sunday on Truth Social, Trump said he was going to delay his trip to Wisconsin by two days but decided that he could not let a “‘shooter’ or potential assassin to force change to scheduling.”
Trump’s campaign and RNC officials said in a joint statement that Trump will attend the upcoming convention in Milwaukee as “we proceed with our convention to nominate him to serve as the 47th President of the United States.”
While security measures are not expected to change, it is unclear how the assassination attempt will impact the programming, tone and focus of the RNC. The attack has reinforced a sense of unity among top Republicans ahead of the convention, during which Trump is slated to be named the GOP’s official nominee.
Gunshots were heard soon after Trump began speaking Saturday. He began clutching his ear within seconds after popping noises rang out.
Trump said he was shot by a bullet that struck his right ear. Spectator Corey Comperatore was killed and two others were injured.
The shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was immediately killed by a Secret Service agent who fired at the roof where he was positioned, the FBI said. That roof, while outside of the rally’s security perimeter at 148 yards away from the stage, had been identified as a security vulnerability before the rally. Understanding how he got onto the roof despite those concerns is now a central question for investigators.
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