Harry Kazakian, a licensed private investigator and seasoned security professional , followed the media coverage in the aftermath of the Donald Trump assassination attempt on July 13 , painfully witnessing how the Secret Service's "unimaginable" mistakes and lapses in judgment led to a botched operation in which the stakes were high.
Harry listed at least three problematic factors of the agency's performance that ultimately led to the first assassination attempt on a presidential candidate in 40 years. "The fact that while only 150 yards away from where a presidential candidate was speaking, a young man was able to climb onto the roof of a warehouse, get his rifle out and do this deed is beyond imagination."
On Saturday, July 13 at around 6:15 p.m. while former president Trump began speaking to large swaths of supporters who had gathered in Butler, Pennsylvania for his rally, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto the rooftop of a nearby warehouse just outside the perimeter established by the Secret Service. He positioned his semiautomatic AR-15 style rifle and fired eight bursts of shots at the presumptive Republican presidential nominee , who was grazed on the ear and subsequently ducked.
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Crooks continued to miss Trump, but inadvertently killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, as he shielded his family from stray bullets. Two other rallygoers were said to be gravely injured with one witness telling BBC that she saw someone bleeding profusely. The 20-year-old was shot and killed within the next minute by a Secret Service sniper.
First and foremost, Harry said, there should have been an officer positioned on the roof of the warehouse Crooks used to position himself. It was later revealed the agency was warned the roof was a blind spot for a potential threat. But Kimberly Cheatle, the now-former head of the Secret Service following her resignation Tuesday, said told Congress Monday the sloped roof was too dangerous for officials to stand.
Harry scoffed at this notion, saying he's seen security personnel stationed on roofs with far deeper slopes. Furthermore, there are other ways to secure a roof without stationing a guard there: air support.
“I would've had an air support helicopter or a couple of drones out there," he said. "I would want a birds-eye view of not only that rooftop but everywhere else." Harry couldn't underscore how much of a lapse the unsecured warehouse was, he became annoyed when the agency "passed the buck" to the local law enforcement officials who they said were in charge of that section of the perimeter.
"It’s my understanding the Secret Service is sent there to protect the presidential candidate. The Secret Service should take responsibility," Harry said.
Besides the egregious gaffe regarding roof security, officials' judgment was seriously lacking in other areas. Harry cites the fact that Crooks was spotted several times by rallygoers and Secret Service personnel through a range finder—yet he remained at the podium for 10 minutes between the moment Crooks was spotted on the roof with a gun and when he began firing. This point was also brought up by Congress, who got no direct answer from Cheatle, which left Harry annoyed.
"Her agenda should have been to get to the bottom of the failure and report it to the American people. She did not. I'm not sure what her plan was."
When asked why officials allowed Crooks to scale the warehouse, she argued that Crooks was not a perceivable threat because, at the moment, he was just a young man with a backpack. "An individual with a backpack is not a threat," she told a panel of angry Republicans.
Harry sided with the GOP members, saying that idea is ridiculous. An unidentified individual who enters a secure perimeter without authorization needs to be questioned, he said. "Something as simple as 'what are you doing here? State your business' If an unidentified person comes into a secure perimeter, they need to be questioned. You can’t just have an unidentified person on a rooftop with a backpack while a person of interest like a presidential candidate is giving a speech."
It's because of these lapses in judgment that Comperatore was killed and two others were critically wounded, he said explicitly placing the blood on the agency's hands. “Because of their failure, a person died and two others got shot. Someone has to be accountable for that. “There wasn’t enough protection. There wasn’t enough planning to make this area secure for Mr. Trump or spectators."
Cheatle resigned one day after she was berated by lawmakers about the multiple failures during Crook's attempt on the former president's life. Harry said he welcomed it.
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“I think she did the right thing by resigning," he said “I hope that she has to face consequences in addition to resigning.” If it were up to him, Cheatle would be forced to produce a detailed report of her plans to protect the former president and truthfully answer questions pertaining to her preparations.
"Did a team survey the area prior to the event? What was the original plan? Explain everything that went wrong," he said listing some of the questions he'd want answers to. The failures are especially shocking because of how violent US politics have become since the former president took office in 2016.
From attacks on the US Capitol building in 2020 over Trump's loss to Joe Biden, to a Michigan man being run over with an ATV just this week for erecting pro-Trump signs, American politics have seemingly been in a downward spiral. "The political world is in turmoil." Therefore, Harry said there is no excuse for the agency's "lax" performance while protecting a presidential candidate
The only possible silver lining of the incident would be reform in the Secret Service because "no operation is ironclad." Unfortunately, Harry said, reform often comes after tragedy has struck because organizations are far more "reactive than proactive."
He said he doesn't know whether Cheatle's resignation will bring about that necessary reform, but he hopes it will send a message to officials that more planning needs to be done when the stakes are high. “I’m hoping going forward, that will be the plan”
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