The rooftop of the building used by former President Donald Trump’s would-be assassin had previously been designated as a security risk prior to his Saturday rally in Butler, Pa., but for some reason, it was left unattended without a police or Secret Service presence, according to a new report.
The Secret Service, already aware that the rooftop posed a security threat, is now facing criticism. Sources with knowledge of the agency’s operations told NBC News that the building, owned by a glass research company, had been identified as a potential risk.
The building is located next to the Butler Farm Show, the outdoor venue where Trump was speaking. Following the incident, lawmakers have called for a comprehensive review of security protocols. The chief of the Secret Service confirmed that the agency would participate in an independent security review to prevent future breaches.
Despite precautions, the rooftop from which the gunman fired—situated just outside the main security perimeter but only 148 yards from where Trump was speaking—had no law enforcement presence. This oversight left the area unguarded, despite it being well within the range of the gunman’s semiautomatic weapon. The responsibility for securing this particular rooftop had been delegated to local authorities, which happens often at such venues featuring Trump, but there are questions as to why the Secret Service did not confirm that obvious risk was secured before Trump began to speak.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger disclosed that his office’s Emergency Services Unit deployed four sniper teams and four quick response teams at the rally. However, he highlighted that the Secret Service was primarily responsible for overseeing security measures outside the venue.
Conservative pundit and author Candace Owens does not believe the official narrative from the Secret Service, based on her experiences being around Trump as president and since.
Owens on Sunday addressed a “conspiracy” surrounding the 20-year-old shooter, who was subsequently killed by Secret Service counter-snipers but only after he managed to squeeze off several shots, one of which barely missed killing the former president. Witness Greg Smith informed the BBC shortly after the shooting that he had observed a man with a rifle crawling on a rooftop near the rally venue just minutes before shots were fired.
“We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50ft away from us,” Smith recounted, Newsweek reported. “He had a rifle; we could clearly see a rifle.” Smith described a scene of chaos and lack of coordination among security personnel as he attempted to warn them of imminent danger. Video clips of the alleged sniper on the rooftop have since circulated on social media, and in some of them, rallygoers can be heard attempting to alert police to his presence.
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BREAKING: Eyewitness tells BBC that he informed police, Secret Service about a suspicious man on a roof with a rifle.
He was ignored. pic.twitter.com/Cvfb7znZtZ
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 13, 2024
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There have been other presidential assassination attempts in history but I believe this is the first one where dozens of people saw it coming and spent minutes pointing him out to law enforcement who responded by doing absolutely nothing about it
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 15, 2024
Smith clearly stated that he and others made every effort to draw attention to the gunman for three to four minutes before the shooting occurred. After watching a clip of the interview on a live special of her podcast, conservative commentator Owens expressed her astonishment as she said: “You have got to be kidding me. Let me say something right now. Take this to the bank. That person was allowed to scale that roof.”
She based her theory on the fact that she has spent a lot of time around Trump, including when he was president. “I was around him a lot—a lot. And let me tell you something, [with] the Secret Service, there is no person that can get around the perimeter of the Secret Service where Donald Trump is without them being aware of it.”
She added: “I am not kidding when I say that my husband once almost got shot by the Secret Service because he came down a staircase. I was speaking at the NRA, and he snaked in and came down, and they didn’t know who he was. They were like, ‘Freeze, we will shoot you right now.'” Owens added: “So you’re telling me that guy walked up and was trying to get the attention, the Secret Service saw him, and he’s pointing and he’s saying, ‘This guy’s got a gun,’ and they’re pretending they don’t know what’s going on? I mean, am I crazy?”
“Do you guys actually believe this was a failure in intelligence, all of these Secret Service agents crawling around?” Owens asked her audience. “They’re trying to now tell us that common sense is a conspiracy. That is the new thing that they’re trying.” Owens, who plans to vote for Trump in the upcoming November election, mentioned that it is standard procedure for the Secret Service to conduct surveillance of an area “days before” a president’s scheduled appearance.
“They’ll knock on doors,” she said. “They’ve got to figure out every possible angle that any individual could potentially get unapproved. Because you know what? This has happened in the past. People have been shot from roofs. People have been shot from windows.
“There was a zero percent chance that some random person with a rifle was able to scale a roof unless there was just an unbelievable failure of intelligence. And you want to know why it’s unbelievable? Because I don’t effing believe it. I don’t believe it. I want the names of the Secret Service agents that allowed this remarkable security failure to go down, because I don’t believe this.”
“They knew he was going to speak, and they weren’t worried about the roofs, a roof with an angle to shoot the president?” Owens continued. “And this wasn’t like [the shooter] scaled [the roof] silently. This man was allowed time to set up,” Owens added of the shooter. “Do you understand what that witness is telling us?…Oh, then suddenly, [the Secret Service] snapped back into life, guys, and they just took him out. They blew his head off. Nothing to see here, guys, he missed his shot.”
“Let me ask you something, world, do you buy this s***? Hang on. Do you buy it? Because if you, if you’re buying this, I’m about to sell you guys all sorts of stuff. If you’re buying this narrative that’s coming out slowly, I mean, I’m a Nigerian prince. Answer my emails, send me a million dollars, give me your credit card digits,” she added.
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.