This is getting just too strange. “If true” this report puts Secret Service incompetence at a whole new level. The gunman reportedly flew a drone over the venue not long before the event.
From The Wall Street Journal:
The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the western Pennsylvania fairgrounds shortly before the former president was set to speak there, law-enforcement officials briefed on the matter said, further underscoring the stunning security lapses ahead of Trump’s near assassination.Thomas Matthew Crooks flew the drone on a programmed flight path earlier in the day on July 13 to scour the Butler Farm Show grounds ahead of Trump’s ill-fated rally, the officials said. The predetermined path, the officials added, suggests Crooks flew the drone more than once as he researched and scoped out the event site.
Other aspect of the planning were covered also by WSJ:
Police had become suspicious of Crooks more than an hour earlier, when officers saw him milling about the edges of the rally with a range finder and a backpack.The use of the drone was just one way in which authorities have said Crooks planned his attack. Crooks, described by friends as very smart yet withdrawn, began researching the site shortly after the Trump campaign announced the rally on July 3, and registered for the event on July 7, officials said. He visited the farm show grounds a few days later to scope it out.On July 13, officials said, he returned with a pair of homemade bombs that appeared to be designed to be set off by remote control, as they were fitted with a receiver like the kind used to set off fireworks remotely. Investigators found the rudimentary explosives in Crooks’ car parked close to the grounds, along with a ballistic carrier, or vest, with three, 30-round magazines in it, an indication that he might have wanted to cause greater carnage.
It’s hard to think of a more complete failure.
But a drone? A drone!
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