Secret Service 'may have mistaken Trump shooter for cop' as mapped plan indicated 'police were to be on roof'

Secret Service officials reportedly said one of its snipers didn't shoot would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Crooks, 20, because they thought he was a police officer stationed on top of the old warehouse.

The "working theory" as the agency is reportedly calling it is the latest attempt at damage control for the incredible security breach last Saturday that left the former president with a bloody ear and MAGA Republicans fuming.

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It is said the plan for securing the perimeter that evening said it was local police officer's duty to secure the buildings located behind the stage. The area was reportedly starred on a map of the plan.

A former FBI official suggests that a miscommunication between the Secret Service and local police might have contributed to the shooting incident involving President Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Frank Figliuzzi, an ex-FBI official, proposed that the Secret Service may have confused the shooter with a local police officer.

In an opinion piece published in Daily Mail , Figliuzzi speculated that Secret Service agents might have mistaken Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, for a police sniper.

According to investigators, Crooks fired multiple shots from a rooftop approximately 150 meters away from Trump using an AR-15 rifle.

"We know that a Secret Service sniper must have had a clear view of the rooftop because the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead within a few seconds of opening fire on Trump," wrote Figliuzzi.

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"But why did that sniper ignore Crooks till then? One plausible explanation is that the Secret Service (which is entirely separate from the FBI) assumed the assassin was a police sniper, part of their security team," Figliuzzi added.

He wrote that such a case "implies serious failures in communication."

"I would expect police and Secret Service teams to not only meet and introduce themselves but map out their specific roles in detail," Figliuzzi said in his opinion piece. "They ought to have been able to recognize each other by sight."

Crooks, who was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper seconds after he fired at the Republican presidential nominee, was able to climb to the roof of a nearby building where he had a clear shot of Trump as he spoke to supporters at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

The gunman fired two bursts of shots with his semiautomatic rifle, nicking Trump's ear, killing one rallygoer and critically injuring two others.

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One source with knowledge of the Secret Service's plan for securing the perimeter that evening said it was local police officer's duty to secure the buildings located behind the stage. The area was reportedly starred on a map of the plan.

It was also said that police officers were inside the old warehouse that Crooks climbed to align his shot, allowing him to carry out his plan right under, or in this case above, their noses. There are conflicting accounts about this claim-some say the police officers were inside the building but others claim they were inside a building adjacent to the old warehouse Crooks was on top of.

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