Former Secret Service agent examines Trump assassination attempt

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD/AP) — The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump is raising questions over how the Secret Service allowed the gunman to get on the roof of a manufacturing plant and fire shots within 150 yards away.

A full day after the shooting, the gunman’s motive was still a mystery, and investigators said they believe he acted alone before being fatally shot by Secret Service agents. President Joe Biden ordered an independent security review of the attack, which killed a bystander and critically wounded two others. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said the upper part of his right ear was pierced by a bullet . The FBI was investigating the shooting as a potential act of domestic terrorism.

The FBI identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks , 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. His motive remains unclear.

The gunman had his father’s AR-style rifle and was perched atop a nearby roof when some rallygoers pointed him out to local law enforcement, said two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal probe.

A local law enforcement officer climbed to the roof and found Crooks, who pointed the rifle at the officer. The officer then retreated down the ladder, and the gunman quickly fired toward Trump, the officials said. That’s when U.S. Secret Service gunmen shot him, the officials said.

Kevin Rojek, the agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told the Associated Press “it is surprising” that the gunman was able to open fire on the stage before the Secret Service killed him.

Bomb-making materials were found inside both Crooks’ vehicle and at his home. The FBI described the devices as “rudimentary.”

His motive remained unclear. Crooks wasn’t on the FBI’s radar, and he was believed to have acted alone. Investigators combed through his social media feeds and his home but found no immediate threatening writing or posts. His family was cooperating. Crooks’ relatives did not return multiple messages seeking comment from the AP.

Former top Secret Service agents told The AP that Crooks should never have been allowed to gain access to the roof, and the agency will have to figure out how that happened. They said such a lapse could have been caused by officers neglecting their posts or a flaw in the event’s security plan.

The agency is “going to have to go through the security plan and interview a number of people from the director on down” to figure out what went wrong, said Stephen Colo, who retired in 2003 as an assistant director after a 27-year career in the service.

Colo said presidential candidates and former presidents don’t typically get the same level of protection as the sitting president. In fact, Colo said he was surprised that the agency had staffed the event with a counter-sniper team. Such a valuable resource — there are not many of those highly-trained agents — is usually reserved for the president. Candidates don’t usually get such teams.

Timothy McCarthy, a former agent who retired from the agency in 1994, said the Secret Service “better be doing a deep dive into what happened there and doing whatever it takes to figure it out” because the gunman should not have been able to occupy such a vantage point.

“How did that person get up on that building?” said McCarthy, 75, who in 1981 took a bullet when President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. “How did that happen? I mean, that’s the key to the entire thing. And what measures were put in place to prevent it?”

On Sunday, News 8 spoke with Jason Russell, a former Secret Service agent between 2002 and 2010 who protected former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In 2013, he founded Secure Environment Consultants, a company near Grand Rapids that provides security and safety assessments to schools, childcares and other organizations. He’s been the group’s president ever since.

“The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission,” Russell told News 8. “(You) can’t make mistakes like you can make in another profession because any mistake you make can change the course of history.”

Crooks was outside the security perimeter when he fired the shots at the former president.

“I think what you saw yesterday was agents putting a reasonable perimeter up, putting good safety and security measures in place,” Russell said. “I think you saw somebody who was able to find a gap, maybe a momentary gap in that safety and security and take advantage of it.”

Russell said the Secret Service generally tries to make the perimeter large enough to be safe but also contained so they can effectively concentrate their response.

“The larger you make the perimeter, the thinner you make your protection of that perimeter because you have to spread out resources more,” Russell said.

He added the Secret Service rarely goes to private property and takes it over ahead of an event.

“The Secret Service can’t just go and say, ‘We’re taking your property as part of our perimeter,'” Russell said. “They try to limit the impact they have on neighboring areas and businesses.”

Instead, the Secret Service keeps visibility on private property through counter snipers , Russell said. He believes the shooter was on the slope of the roof where agents didn’t see him right away, giving him enough time to fire the shots.

“I think he climbed up to the peak of the roof and probably put his rifle over the peak,” Russell said. “Once that happened, within a couple seconds I believe he started taking shots. The counter snipers responded extremely quickly and were able to neutralize the threat. Obviously, unfortunately not before he was able to get a couple rounds off that took the lives of an innocent bystander and potentially could have harmed former President Trump.”

Russell said counter snipers must confirm if it’s a deadly force situation. He recalled situations where counter snipers saw activity and first notified other agents on the ground to check it out.

“We’ve had maintenance people in open windows, we’ve had all kinds of people in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Russell said. “If the snipers just start shooting everybody that they see, certainly there will be other questions asked.”

With still nearly four months until Election Day, there are lots of public events to come. Fears remain over a copycat attack or retaliatory violence.

The Republican National Convention starts Monday. Russell said it’s “really unlikely” anything will happen there, adding that security has been planned for years and the event will have an extensive perimeter. He encouraged people to be cautious in the next few months.

“Always be situationally aware, pay attention to your surroundings and be prepared to react if something does happen,” Russell said.

Russell said the Secret Service keeps documentation for everything it does. Secret Service agents can be on scene for a week before a campaign visit, setting up security, establishing perimeters, determining where to position crews and meeting with local police. Supervisors go through the site and sign off on the security plan.

“All of that information will eventually determine what they did, why they did it and how they did it,” Russell said. “Eventually we’ll have answers of why that situation was able to happen.”

He encouraged people to wait for all the facts to come out before coming to conclusions.

“This isn’t like maybe what you had when President Kennedy was assassinated where there wasn’t as many documents available,” Russell said. “Everything the Secret Service does is documented.”

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