Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe admitted to communication breakdown with local law enforcement and “complacency” of some agents leading up to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, PA.
I cannot believe this happened:
“[T]he Secret Service has the main responsibility of building the site plan. We cannot abdicate, or defer are responsibilities to others. Advanced team personnel have an obligation to ensure that each site meets the protective requirements and principles of Secret Service methodologies. The Secret Service did not give clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners there were communication deficiencies between law enforcement personnel at the site. For example, the Secret Service did not co-locate its security room with local law enforcement. There was an over-reliance on mobile devices resulting in information being siloed.”
Local law enforcement has told everyone that they tried for days to coordinate with the Secret Service regarding security.
The police stressed to the agents that they needed to secure the roof where the man shot Trump.
As police hunted the shooter, one policeman’s body camera caught him saying, “I f—ing told them that they needed to post guys f—ing over here…I told them that f—ing Tuesday,” said a Butler Township officer in audio captured on his body-worn camera. “I talked to the Secret Service guys. They’re like, ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re going to post guys over here.’”
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.
Law enforcement provided radios for the Secret Service:
Butler County runs the radio communications tower out of their 911 Call Center. That is pretty much the way radio communications work across America in every County, in every State. If their radios are “interoperable,” a visiting law enforcement agency is assigned a frequency, a “channel” for their operation while in that County. If their radios are not “interoperable” with the County Communications tower, then the visiting agency is assigned/offered actual radios to use while they are running their operation in the County.
Well, the Secret Service never picked up the radios set aside for the agents:
The radio comms were properly and perfectly arranged during the extensive pre-mission planning. On J12, the Butler County ESU Commander personally reminded the USSS counter-sniper teams to pick up their assigned radios at the ESU Command Post RV, which was positioned according to planning at the Butler Fairgrounds, the following morning before 1100 hrs. It didn’t happen.
Rowe admitted this need to change, especially since another man planned to assassinate Trump in Florida last weekend:
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe on the first Trump assassination attempt: “The findings of the mission assurance review have prompted the Secret Service to move into the accountability phase…[A]s a result of these failures, what has become clear to me is we need a shift in paradigm in how we conduct our protective operations. As was demonstrated on Sunday in West Palm Beach, the threat level is evolving and requires this paradigm shift.”
Rowe promised to hold employees accountable. The USSS placed five agents on leave last month.
All of them were involved in security planning for the rally.
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