Officers left post overlooking roof before shooter ascended: State police commissioner
(The Hill) -- Two local officers stationed inside a building overlooking the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump left their post moments before the shooter ascended, the commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) told a House committee on Tuesday.
The Butler Emergency Services Unit (ESU), a SWAT-trained team of area law enforcement, was the first to identify Crooks as a suspicious person after he failed to enter the venue ahead of Trump’s speech, according to interviews conducted by the PSP.
After identifying Crooks as a suspicious person, the two officers, situated on the second story of the building located right next to the building Crooks eventually shot from, left their post to search for Crooks on the ground.
Col. Christopher L. Paris, PSP’s commissioner, said he was informed the two officers "were searching alongside other local officers in the immediacy after Crooks had been identified as a suspicious person."
“Are you then saying from your knowledge that those ESU officers left the location where they could look out the window in search of this person?” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) asked Paris.
“Yes, that is my understanding,” Paris responded.
Bishop called these comments from Paris "revelatory," and later asked if the officers would have had a "clear shot" at Crooks had they stayed in the room. Paris said he wasn't certain.
In a video presented during a Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday, lawmakers showed that the officers' post on the second story had a clear view of the position Crooks eventually assumed.
Tuesday's hearing was the latest congressional effort to get answers on how the Secret Service and partner agencies allowed a gunman to fire on Trump during a crowded rally. One of the key questions is why the building — about 150 yards from the rally stage — was not secured throughout the event.
Paris said he did not know why no law enforcement personnel were placed on the roof of the building, rather than being posted in the building beside it.
Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned on Tuesday after a bruising House Oversight hearing on Monday, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” last week that the rooftop was not manned by law enforcement because of security concerns about it being sloped.
Members of the Homeland Security committee visited the rally site Monday, and multiple representatives noted Tuesday that they could easily climb and stand on the rooftop, including 70-year-old Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.).
Paris at Tuesday's hearing also described a security walkthrough on July 11, two days ahead of the Trump rally, involving a PSP area commander. At the time, Secret Service agents assured the commander that the area would be covered by Butler’s ESU, according to Paris.
The roof Crooks fired rounds from was approximately 147 yards from the former president’s podium and offered a clear shot, yet it fell outside of the Secret Service’s security perimeter — a point that many lawmakers grilled Cheatle on Monday.
Cheatle offered few answers on how Crooks was able to get atop the building despite being deemed suspicious some 20 minutes before the shooting.
A local police officer did approach Crooks on the roof after being hoisted up by another officer — but then dropped back onto the ground after Crooks leveled a rifle at him, according to Paris and other officials.
Paris on Tuesday estimated that the encounter occurred 2-3 minutes before Crooks fired at Trump, but said he did not know what communications occurred with the Secret Service during that interim time.
Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) said those on the ground had more information about what happened that day.
“I had local law enforcement officers, local electeds coming to me, whispering to me, ‘There’s more here to the story,’” Correa said. “To have people on the ground there concerned of coming forward, afraid of stepping forward, is unacceptable.”