Video, audio, and witness accounts show that more than two minutes before would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks shot former President Donald J. Trump, police knew he had a rifle on a warehouse building roof, yet the U.S. Secret Service said it was unaware of the gun before Crooks opened fire.
A timeline developed by U.S. Senate investigators, along with social media videos and eyewitness accounts, show there was plenty of time for the Secret Service to extract Trump from the rally stage before he was hit with a bullet from Crooks’ AR-15 rifle.
The picture that has emerged from a U.S. Senate hearing on July 30 — along with accumulating evidence from early investigations — shows local police broadcasted reports of a man with a gun on a nearby building roof, but somehow, the Secret Service never heard those reports.
Investigators are inching closer to identifying those responsible for not stopping Crooks, 20, before he fired a volley of eight shots into the packed crowd at the Butler Farm Show fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“At a minimum people knew that this guy had a gun at least two minutes before the shooting happened,” said U.S. Sen Mike Lee (R-Utah) during heated Senate questioning of Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe.
‘When the Secret Service screws up, people die.
“I want to know what you can tell me about what happened during that final two-minute period, where a whole bunch of people in the crowd saw and were shouting, ‘He’s got a gun!’”
“No information regarding a weapon on the roof was ever passed to our personnel,” Rowe replied.
“How is that even possible?” Lee said.
Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI, testified that the information about the gun was not shared by local police with the Secret Service.
Lee wasn’t buying it.
“But there’s still time,” Lee said. “At that time if there were an open channel of communication in which they were able to tell him, ‘He’s got a gun! Take him out!’ you could still take President Trump off the stage. You could have him duck. You could have the shooter neutralized.”
Dramatic new video captured by Butler resident Dave Stewart shows a Pennsylvania State Police trooper with his gun drawn, looking up at the roof of Building 6 of the American Glass Research campus — 2 minutes 7 seconds before Crooks opened fire.
A half-dozen police officers circled the building trying to spot Crooks, who was in a prone shooting position shielded from view by a 5 inch-high gable at the top of the slightly pitched roof, the video showed.
Video shot by bystanders yards away from the west end of the building showed Crooks belly-crawling up the sloped roof with his rifle. They shouted to nearby police officers to warn them, first of Crooks’ presence and then of his gun.
A local police officer on traffic duty who heard reports about the gunman on police radio ran to Building 6 and was given a boost by a second officer. When he pulled himself up and peered over the roof line, Crooks pointed his rifle at him, causing him to drop about eight feet to the ground, the FBI said.
Video shot by Michael Difrischia of Greenville, Pennsylvania, showed Crooks with his head down, lining up the shot. Stewart’s video from the south side of the building showed Crooks raise his head above the gable about five seconds before the first crack of gunfire.
At 6:11:03 p.m., a local law enforcement officer broadcast over the radio that “the individual on the roof of the AGR building is armed and laying down,” Sen. Johnson’s timeline said. Eight seconds later, an officer updated the broadcast, adding the man on the roof was armed with a long gun.
On the Stewart video, a man was heard shouting, “He’s got a gun!” five seconds before gunfire erupted.
A new video posted to X on July 31— filmed by one of the rallygoers shot by Crooks — shows the gunman running across the roof of the AGR building then kneeling before dropping into a prone shooting position. It was all clearly visible from the event stage 130 yards away.
At the time, James Copenhaver, 74, was seated in the bleachers behind the stage, to Trump’s left. He was struck by one of Crooks’ eight bullets. He was recently released from the hospital and is now in rehabilitation.
Five seconds before the first shot rang out, the Stewart video showed, Crooks lifted his head above the roof gable as he lined up his shot. Shortly before that, what appeared to be a drone was seen on Stewart’s video flying from the nearby water tower in the direction of Building 6.
The first shot from Crooks’ rifle was fired at 6:11:33 p.m. followed by two more volleys, a slight pause, and then a hail of five more bullets. Stewart’s video captured the sounds. Almost simultaneous with the eighth shot, a round from a Secret Service counter-sniper struck Crooks, killing him. A second counter-sniper shot was heard 10 seconds later.
Much like a U.S. House hearing on July 22, the July 30 Senate hearing showcased palpable frustration by senators with acting Director Rowe.
‘The worst and most catastrophic security failure of the Secret Service since 1981.’
There were repeated questions on how the roof of Building 6 was unguarded, leaving an ideal shooting platform for Crooks. Rowe’s replies ranged from not knowing the answers to appearing to shift blame to local police.
“You said that the Secret Service provides explicit instructions to the locals [police],” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “Were explicit instructions provided to cover the roof of the AGR building and locals just not following, or were those explicit instructions not provided?”
Rowe replied: “My understanding what was communicated was the locals had a plan and that they had been there before.”
Noting that local counter-sniper teams were supposed to be in the building behind Building 6, Rowe placed a large photograph on an easel showing the view looking out of the second-story windows of the building.
“If they’d just held their position and looked left,” he said.
One of the counter-snipers who took photographs of Crooks from one of the second-story windows at 5:14 p.m. said he left the building at one point to help search the grounds for Crooks when police lost sight of him.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the Trump rally “the worst and most catastrophic security failure of the Secret Service since 1981—the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.”
Cruz said if there was any accountability at the Secret Service, former Director Kimberly Cheatle would have resigned on July 13.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Ga.) read from a counter-sniper whistleblower email sent to everyone in the uniformed division of the Secret Service. The email made a prediction of another assassination attempt before Election Day due to a failing bureaucracy.
The whistleblower said serving on a Secret Service counter-sniper team used to be a point of pride, but it is now “a stain I will never be able to cleanse.”
Blackburn said the stakes in the work the Secret Service does could not be higher.
“There are 31 protectees that the Secret Service is responsible for,” Blackburn said. “The urgency of their mission speaks to the fact this isn’t like a federal agency that misses their casework numbers or a company that misses their revenue numbers.
“When the Secret Service screws up, people die.”
Following the hearing, Sen. Johnson expressed his frustration with the lack of answers from federal agents even as local law enforcement officers have been forthcoming. “Federal officials just gave us the big middle finger,” Johnson said. “Local law enforcement they started talking to us. They provided us information.”
Updated Shooting Timeline
On July 30, Johnson released an updated version of the shooting timeline.
4:26 p.m. — A Beaver County officer leaving the grounds after his shift alerts other officers about Crooks and his location at a picnic table.
5:10 p.m. — A local sheriff’s counter-sniper located on the second floor of a building on the American Glass Research campus first notices Crooks.
5:14 p.m. — A local counter-sniper takes two photographs of Crooks as a “suspicious person.”
5:30 p.m. — Former President Donald J. Trump arrives at the Butler Farm Show grounds for his scheduled speech.
5:32 p.m. — The local sheriff’s counter-sniper observes Crooks scrolling on his phone and using a rangefinder, a device for measuring distances in golf or sport shooting.
5:38 p.m. — A local counter-sniper sends a text to other law enforcement snipers describing Crooks.
5:40 p.m. — The local sniper is told to call into command center regarding Crooks.
5:41 p.m. — The local sniper sends a description of Crooks and his use of a rangefinder over the police radio.
5:45 p.m. — A sniper from Butler County sends the photos and description of Crooks to one of the Secret Service counter-snipers at the rally, describing his use of a rangefinder.
5:53 p.m. — A counter-sniper team leader sends a group email indicating that “local law enforcement [is] looking for a suspicious individual outside the perimeter.”
6:03 p.m. — Former President Trump takes the stage.
6:06 p.m. — According to the FBI, Crooks pulls himself up onto the roof of AGR Building 6.
6:08:20 p.m. — A local law enforcement officer reports over the radio that there is someone on the roof of AGR Building 6.
6:10:04 to 6:10:19 p.m. — A rallygoer records a video that appears to show Crooks on the roof. A person can be heard trying to get police attention: “He’s on the roof. Right there.”
6:11 p.m. — Crooks points his rifle at a local police officer who pulled himself up at the roof edge to take a look. The officer drops to the ground to get out of the line of fire.
6:11:03 — A local law enforcement official reports over the radio that the man on the roof of Building 6 is armed and lying down.
6:11:11 — A local law enforcement officer reports on the radio that the man on the roof is armed with a “long gun.”
6:11:33 — First two shots are fired at Trump and the crowd.
6:11:34 — Five more gunshots are heard, followed by a return shot.
6:11:40 — Police are ordered via radio to lock down all roads.
6:11:52 — A final gunshot is heard.
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