Pat Young, the chief of detectives for Beaver County, slammed Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe’s comments in a Senate hearing over the lack of communication on the day of former President Donald Trump’s rally.
The rally where Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump, killed Corey Comperatore, and injured James Copenhaver and David Dutch.
Every time local law enforcement releases new information, it shows no communication from the Secret Service (USSS), and the agency quickly denies it and pushes back.
For instance, Pennsylvania SWAT said the USSS never held a briefing with them or others before the rally. The members never spoke to them until after the shooting.
I cannot stress this enough. It’s unbelievable how many planes with a precise line of sight to Trump had nothing blocking them.
“Somehow, that we should have had a line of sight on not only the crowd but the area to the side of the building where the shooter was eventually located is kind of ridiculous,” Young told NewsNation on Tuesday. “The ability to redeploy to another area is also kind of this ridiculous notion that’s out there that somehow our guys, despite guidance from Secret Service, could somehow relocate to a better vantage point is almost laughable in some regards.”
Young then told Fox News that he assumed the Secret Service gave his unit guidance.
“They were in place by Butler County ESU [Emergency Services Unit], which I assume was with the approval of Secret Service. Their assignments that day (were) to be clearly defined and in no uncertain terms,” explained Young. “Their areas included the entry control point, the area before and after the magneton monitor and then the area in front of the stage. Those are all within the interior and secure perimeter as defined by the Secret Service. That was their locations … and their priority.”
Rowe told the Senate he couldn’t understand why no one secured the roof where Crooks shot up the rally:
“What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law enforcement officer and a 25-year Secret Service veteran, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” he said.“We assumed that the state and locals had it,” Rowe added. “We made an assumption that there was going to be uniformed presence out there, that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be counter-sniper teams” in the building from whose roof Crooks fired shots.
Rowe also said, “Getting back to your question, senator, these were discussions that were had between the Pittsburgh field office, the local counterparts and everyone supporting that visit that day. And that’s why, when I laid in that position, I could not and I will not and I cannot understand why there was not better coverage, or at least somebody looking at that roof line when that’s where they were posted.”
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger told Fox News that local snipers were located at a different part than where Rowe showed the Senate:
Goldinger, who coordinated local snipers working at the July 13 rally, said they were assigned to a window with a different vantage point than the one Rowe pointed to during his testimony on Tuesday.Goldinger said monitoring the roof of the AGR building, where Thomas Matthew Crooks perched and opened fire, was not the local snipers’ assignment.”The snipers from the Butler and Beaver ESU teams were posted in the second floor of the building adjacent to where the shooter was located, were posted in the two windows toward the end of the building,” Goldinger said. “From their post and vantage point, they were unable to see the shooter on the roof of the other building.””They were not posted at a location that would overlook the roof,” he continued. “Monitoring that roof was not their assignment.”
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