A tale of crushing security lapses and missed chances to stop the man who shot Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — The acting director of the Secret Service was incensed at what had happened that July evening. “What I saw made me ashamed,” Ronald Rowe Jr. said. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”

The unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally stage, is just one of the myriad questions behind the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. The more that investigators unpack from that day, the more missed opportunities that could have prevented the attack are revealed.

As the United States grapples with a second attempt on Donald Trump’s life, in Florida, there remains a reckoning to be done from the Pennsylvania shooting on July 13 that killed one man and wounded three — the ex-president among them.

The Secret Service is a well-funded, historically elite force with a mission to keep presidents and other higher-ups safe — whether they're out for a bicycle ride, attending a world summit, visiting a war zone or campaigning.

But at the farm show grounds, a young nursing home aide with a rifle he borrowed from his dad outmaneuvered authorities for more than 90 minutes before firing the shots that came millimeters from killing Trump. More than two months later, everyone still wants to know:

—When rallygoers reported a man skittering on the squat rooftop of a nearby building, why didn’t anyone in law enforcement move faster?

—Why did the Secret Service exclude that building from its security perimeter, leaving it to local police, and why did the local force not station someone on the roof?

—Why could local law enforcement agencies not communicate in real time with Secret Service agents when they’re supposed to be working together?

—Why did the Secret Service decline offers by local police to use their surveillance drone at the site? And why did Secret Service agents not deploy a system that would have told them an unauthorized drone was aloft — the gunman's — until it was too late?

One overarching question may never be answered. And in these poisonous times, with the November presidential election closing in and a second attempt on Trump’s life just days in the past, it is urgent: What possessed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to kill the former president? The public is no closer to that answer than in the immediate aftermath.

This anatomy of an attempted assassination is based on an AP review of dozens of documents, text messages and video, a congressional report and a Secret Service report on the failures, plus interviews on the record and from law enforcement officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss investigations that are still getting going.

Rowe sat there under the bright lights, his mouth pressed into a thin line. His voice was thick with anger as senators laid into him and his agents — questioning how on Earth some guy was able to get on top of a nearby roof as the rally was going on and fire off eight rounds, grazing Trump’s ear and ripping into three others, killing one of them.

Rowe’s voice grew louder at the July 30 Senate hearing as he squared off with lawmakers who wanted him to fire somebody — anybody — who had been on the ground that day. It wasn’t enough for them that the agency's chief, Kim Cheatle, had resigned a week earlier. But Rowe dug in.

“I will not rush to judgment," he said, snapping at a senator. “People will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity.”

He wasn’t blaming anyone in particular, though he did throw some not-so-subtle shade at the Pennsylvania police officers who were supposed to be guarding the building complex in question.

But he also wasn’t trying to play down his agency's epic failure as it became slowly clearer to local officers that Crooks wasn’t just an oddball with a backpack. Local police did finger-pointing of their own, citing communications breakdowns that began when the face-to-face meeting the Secret Service said would happen with them before the event never did.

Secret Service agents in the line of duty have been equipped since the 1940s with various gadgets enabling them to communicate remotely in real time. Back when everyday people had to find a phone booth, these agents could be seen wearing wired earbuds or talking up their sleeves.

Yet when a man outside the perimeter of metal detectors and Secret Service scrutiny raised suspicions, then fears, then his rifle on the roof, the agency's local police backups could not get word directly to the agents closest to Trump or the federal snipers on other rooftops in time to hustle him off the stage or take down the gunman.

Last week, the Secret Service released a five-page document summarizing conclusions in a report not yet completed. Among the findings: The Secret Service did not give clear guidance to local law enforcement partners at the rally. It did not correct line-of-sight problems that left Trump open to sniper fire. And some of the agents on duty that day were complacent.

A bipartisan report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made public Wednesday was more blunt if not scathing. It found “USSS failures in planning, communications, security, and allocation of resources for the July 13, 2024, Butler rally were foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”

It was designed to be a typical Trump rally — outdoors at the Butler Farm Show grounds with big red barns, wide-open fields and bleacher seating.

Butler County, on the western edge of a presidential swing state, is a Trump stronghold. In a place where turnout hovers around an impressive 80%, Trump won with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. The rural area north of Pittsburgh has notoriously bad cell service, which made police communications even worse in the crisis to come. The Secret Service did not bring a system to boost device signals in such places.

Three days after the rally was announced, Crooks registered to attend. He also searched online for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”

Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, while he was riding in an open convertible. Oswald concealed himself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission determined he was 265.3 feet from Kennedy when he fired the fatal shot.

Crooks would fire from about double that distance. But guns have evolved since then, and the AR-style weapon Crooks borrowed from his father shoots faster and more easily than anything Oswald had on him.

On July 7, Crooks made the trip from his Bethel Park home, just south of Pittsburgh, to the Butler Farm Show grounds, and was there for about 20 minutes. FBI investigators say he was casing the area. The day before the rally, he practiced shooting at a local sports club.

On July 13, he returned to the grounds and stayed for about 70 minutes before going home. At 1:30 p.m., his dad gave him the rifle, thinking his son was headed back to the club to practice shooting. Twenty-five minutes later Crooks was buying 50 rounds of ammunition.

He parked at a gas station lot about a third of a mile from the rally, dressed in camo shorts, a black belt and a gray T-shirt with the logo of a YouTube channel dedicated to firearms. He rode a bicycle to the grounds and carried a big backpack.

Agents have cracked into his phone, searched his laptop and interviewed hundreds of people. Yet the FBI says his motive remains unknown.

Crooks was described by classmates at Bethel Park High School as smart but standoffish, often seen wearing headphones and sitting alone at lunch looking at his phone. Some said he was often mocked by other students for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, and for wearing a mask even after the COVID-19 pandemic had subsided.

“He sat by himself, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even try to make conversation,” said 17-year-old Liam Campbell, echoing the comments of classmates who remembered the shooter. “He was an odd kid,” but nothing about him seemed dangerous, he added. “Just a normal person who seemed like he didn’t like talking to people."

After graduating high school in 2022, Crooks went on to the Community College of Allegheny County, earning an associate’s degree with honors in engineering science this past May. He also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.

Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. But there was also a $15 donation to a progressive group recorded under “Thomas Crooks” in January 2021.

There were roughly 155 law enforcement officers at the rally that day. That included a Secret Service counter-sniper team, a Butler County SWAT team and uniformed officers. Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered to hear him speak.

The FBI says that after Crooks turned up at the site on that sunny Saturday afternoon, he flew a drone for about 11 minutes up and around the area and was getting the view directly on the controller he used. The Secret Service did not deploy its drone-detection system until later in the afternoon. And the advance team that scouts the venue ahead of time requested additional technology before the rally, but those requests were denied.

The first reported sighting of Crooks was at 4:26 p.m., more than 1½ hours before Trump would begin speaking. A Beaver County sniper team member noticed Crooks at a picnic table, thought he was acting suspiciously, and alerted other local snipers who were posted inside the AGR building complex. “He knows you guys are up there,” the sniper texted the others. “He’s sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit.”

At 5:38 p.m., a Beaver County sniper, stationed inside the building where Crooks would later shoot from the roof, sent photos of Crooks to the local team’s group chat. "I did see him with a rangefinder looking towards the stage. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.” He also said there was a bike with a backpack nearby that wasn’t seen earlier.

Secret Service sniper teams were posted on the roof closest to where Trump was to speak, but officials say the teams were never notified.

At 5:45 p.m., a local sniper recommended that the command post, where team leaders were stationed, be alerted about Crooks. There were two posts; the Secret Service agents were only in one.

“They’re asking for a direction of travel,” one local sniper says.

“Not sure,” Beaver County SWAT sniper Gregory Nicol responded in a message at 6 p.m., about 11 minutes before Crooks would fire. “He was up against the building. If I had to guess toward the back. Away from the event.”

“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to — you know, to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what’s going on,” Nicol later told ABC News.

The AGR (American Glass Research) complex is a warren of buildings, and Crooks eventually got to the roof of the building closest to the rally site. Nicol was trying to shadow Crooks from within the buildings but lost sight of him.

Footage shows Crooks walking back to his car, parked near where the other local snipers were parked. There were improvised explosive devices inside the car, but no one knew.

Bystanders saw Crooks again shortly after. They took mobile phone video of him pulling himself up to the top of the roof and slithering into position. They called the cops. These rally-goers were on alert for what the authorities either hadn't noticed or hadn't treated with the urgency that might have made a difference. You could say security in this moment was crowdsourced.

By 6:08 p.m., law enforcement had eyes on Crooks again. A Secret Service counter sniper saw law local officers running toward the building with their guns drawn, but he didn't think to alert Trump's protective detail to pull the GOP candidate from the stage.

Three minutes later, a local officer was hoisted up the squat roof by another officer, who saw Crooks with the rifle, laying down and pointing the weapon toward him. “He’s armed,” the officer radioed to his squad. “He’s got a long gun.”

That message did not make it to key Secret Service officials. The shots were fired 30 seconds later.