BUTLER, Pa. — Two women who watched former President Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday from a neighboring property described what they called lax safety measures beyond the event’s security perimeter.
Valerie Fennell and Deb Kuminkoski had tickets to go to the Butler rally, but, because of the heat and the large crowd, the pair decided to hang back and watch from Fennell’s backyard, which backs up to the area where the rally was held.
Fennell’s backyard sits in a grassy area between where the Trump crowd gathered and the AGR factory where the shooter was perched on the roof of one of the buildings, approximately 150 yards away.
The shooter’s bullets soared right over their heads on their way toward Trump and his supporters as they watched the event, they said.
Fennell was pressed up against the fence, watching Trump make his opening remarks, when she noticed some “commotion” behind her, people running in different directions, she said.
Someone nearby told her there was a man with a backpack on the roof of one of the nearby buildings. It was during this commotion, Fennell said, that attendees began alerting police that there was someone up on the roof with a backpack.
Moments later, the shooter opened fire.
Fennell didn’t see the shooter, but said her son did, and that he saw the rifle.
She said he also saw law enforcement snipers “get into position” and aim in their general direction as they stood in line with where the shooter was.
Fennell said her son turned to see what they were aiming at.
“He looked up and he saw the shooter,” Kuminkoski said, “a person with long hair all stretched out, ready to shoot. He saw this before any of the gunfire took place.”
Fennell and Kuminkoski said they didn’t see any security where they were positioned, right outside the event. “That I was aware of … nothing was secured on this side,” Fennell said.
When she thinks about it now, Fennell said she’s shocked.
Because she lives so close to where the event was held, Fennell said she was expecting authorities to contact her, to even knock on her door, in the lead up to the rally. She thought they might set up a security station on her property because it’s so close by.
That call never came, and on Saturday, she said she was looking around the area to see where security had set up, but didn’t see anybody.
Instead, the entire area just outside the event’s perimeter was open and people were walking around freely within 150 yards of where Trump was speaking with no security visible, they said.
Fennell said there “might have been” two or three police cars, as well as local police, that were parked nearby, but she didn’t see them stopping anybody that walked nearby.
They shared photos of a woman with a Trump flag riding a horse around in the area and a gap between two side by side fences — separating the lot where the shooter was with the rally — secured only with zip ties.
Fennell said she is feeling “every emotion there could be” since Saturday’s shooting, where one spectator was killed and two were critically injured, and that she, along with a lot of others, are “traumatized” by what happened in the otherwise peaceful area.
“Chances are I’m going to sell my house and I’ve only been here a year and a half,” Fennell said. “I enjoy sitting in my backyard and seeing the fields and the grass, but I’m going to sit out there and forever know what happened.”
Tom Llamas and Ignacio Torres reported from Butler and Rebecca Cohen from New York City.
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