Secret Service missed 102 radio warnings before July 2024 Butler attack on Trump, watchdog finds
WASHINGTON, DC: The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a 64-page report on Thursday, July 2, concluding that the US Secret Service "missed multiple opportunities" to detect, prevent, or disrupt the July 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The report outlined multiple security failures that allowed shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks to get into a position with a direct line of sight to Trump while he was standing on stage at the July 13, 2024 event, including a failure to share key intelligence between agencies and a radio communications failure that left Trump’s protective detail blind to a developing threat.
Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions about a suspicious individual
Among the OIG's most significant findings was that the Secret Service and local law enforcement operated out of separate command posts located 257 yards apart, with intermittent and highly limited radio connectivity between them.
As a result, the Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions regarding an increasingly intense search for a suspicious individual on the grounds, including direct alerts that Crooks had climbed onto the roof of a nearby building with a long gun and a range finder.
"The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination," the report states.
Among the OIG's findings was a failure to warn Trump's protective detail that Crooks had a range finder and a long gun and had climbed onto the roof of a nearby building due to a lack of communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement.
Because the Secret Service communications room received only a handful of phone calls and texts, agents failed to recognize the urgency of the threat and never warned Trump's protective detail to delay the speech or remove him from the stage, according to the OIG.
Counter-drone system malfunctioned, line-of-sight risk left unaddressed
"Communications was a problem because of inoperability. There were too many command posts," Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent, told Fox News Digital.
In addition to a lack of communication, the Secret Service failed to detect Crooks' drone flight that he used to view the campaign event stage less than three hours before the rally due to an under-trained operator and an equipment malfunction, the report states.
Crooks flew the drone undetected for almost nine minutes and flew 471 yards from the event stage at an altitude of 102 feet.
"There should have been a better advance, more officers, more agents, but there's simply a limit to that," said Eckloff. "The biggest failure is that they never should have accepted the risk of doing it at this site. That roof had an egregious line of sight."
Crooks was able to fire eight shots. Trump was grazed in the ear, and Corey Comperatore, 50, who was attending the rally, was killed. Two other spectators were critically injured but survived.
Moments after Trump was shot, Secret Service agents rushed the stage and moved him to safety. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.
