A series of blunders by the US Secret Service eventually made it possible for would-be assassin and gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to successfully shoot Donald Trump in the right ear during his July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, revealed a new damning report.
On July 13, Crooks was crouching with an AR-15 rifle atop a nearby building just a few metres from where Trump was giving his speech. Before being arrested, the 20-year-old gunman killed one rally goer, seriously injured two others, and struck the former President in the ear.
The bipartisan Senate inquiry revealed some alarming findings, one of which was how technical difficulties brought down Secret Service drones during Trump’s rally.
The agent in charge of the Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) contacted a toll-free 888 tech support hotline “to start troubleshooting with the company.” However, the report revealed that there were no backups.
Moreover, it required several hours to restart the drones, and the person who was in-charge of managing them had only three months of drone operation expertise.
The assessment that was made public on Wednesday came to the conclusion that the reasons behind the rally’s failings were “foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”
House committee looking into a second attempt on Trump’s life
Those looking into the assassination attempt have stated that the drones should have been able to detect the gunman on the rooftop of an AGR complex building.
Congress is contemplating providing the USSS more money to support counterattack and staffing.
However, the Senate report additionally found that the Secret Service had taken other suspicious moves with more resources, which resulted in security lapses at the event that day.
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The Senate report comes days after the Secret Service published a five-page memo outlining the main findings of an inconclusive probe on what went wrong. A bipartisan House task committee investigating the shooting will hold a hearing on Thursday.
The House committee is also looking into a second attempt on Trump’s life that occurred earlier this month, when Secret Service personnel apprehended a man with a rifle lurking on the golf course at the GOP presidential candidate’s Florida club.
