'Doesn't take a security expert to ask why someone wasn't up on that roof'

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CHAMPAIGN — In 1981, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy was hit by a bullet while protecting then-President Ronald Reagan during an attempted assassination. Now, the University of Illinois grad is asking why security didn’t prevent a similar attack on Donald Trump.

“Some of the issues that are going to come up will be: Why was that building not posted? Why was there not someone on that building? There’s also going to be issues about communication,” McCarthy told The News-Gazette on Monday.

Most of McCarthy’s questions are about security procedures that should have been put in place prior to Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pa., where authorities said 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired multiple shots, piercing Trump’s ear and killing Army reservist and former fire chief Corey Comperatore, a rally attendee.

However, McCarthy said the agents assigned to guard the former president responded correctly.

Like he did during his time with Reagan, they moved quickly to physically protect Trump.

“They covered the president immediately after the gunshots were fired,” McCarthy said. “They heard that the shooter was down. They had enough reason to believe that it was probably only one, but not for sure, and they kept him down behind bulletproof armor and they immediately evacuated him to a safe room.”

McCarthy said Saturday’s shooting was more comparable to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy than the situation in which he protected Reagan, performed by a sniper rather than an individual at closer quarters with a handgun.

But, like in the attempt on Reagan’s life 43 years ago outside Washington’s Hilton Hotel, this close of a call constitutes a “failure.”

“There were some problems, no doubt about it. It was a failure, much like March 30, ‘81 — in a different sense, but a failure nonetheless. So (the Department of Homeland Security) is going to have to look at it very closely and take a deep dive right away,” McCarthy said.

The retired Orland Park police chief said that while no location will ever be 100 percent secure and that former presidents receive slightly less security coverage than the sitting commander-in-chief, the rooftop which Crooks fired from should have been an obvious place to cover.

“The area was secure, the perimeter was set. They recognized they had a high ground issue,” he said.

There were a few routes he would have suggested to reduce the risk, the most simple being to post an agent or police officer on the building.

He also wonders whether the stage could have been moved or banners could have been placed to block the line of sight from that rooftop.

What’s unclear to McCarthy is why none of these steps were taken, because “it doesn’t take a security expert to ask why someone wasn’t up on that roof if they thought there was an issue.”

McCarthy said that typically, security sweeps of sites like Pennsylvania’s Butler Fairgrounds start days or a week ahead of a presidential visit.

Communication issues could have been a source for the lapse, which may have continued up until the actual shooting.

Police reportedly were alerted to a man acting suspiciously and began investigating the rooftop where Crooks was located before shots were fired.

“When people pointed it out, did they know there was a gunman up there or did they just know someone was up on the building?” McCarthy asked. “It doesn’t sound like they had a chance to communicate to the joint command post that there was a man with a gun. … Should they have called in right away that they’re being told that there was a suspicious person on the rooftop?”

These are all questions that, for now, McCarthy can only wonder about.

He suspects answers will be revealed as the internal investigation takes place, especially with thousands of cell phone videos to reference — another difference from the 1981 shooting.

Either way, McCarthy said the public needs to know what happened, though he hopes the truth will come out once all of the information is confirmed, rather than trickling out over time.

“The Secret Service is totally responsible for the protection of former presidents and in particular, Donald Trump. It’s their job and their job alone to get it done,” McCarthy said.