by WorldTribune Staff, August 9, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Newly obtained body cam footage from Butler Township Police in Pennsylvania shows a Butler officer saying that he had warned the Secret Service days in advance of former President Donald Trump’s rally that they needed to secure the building where would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was positioned when he shot Trump.
In the footage obtained by the Wall Street Journal, a Butler officer in audio captured on his body worn camera at the Saturday, July 13 rally says:
Body cam footage from July 13 shows officers on the roof of the building minutes after Thomas Matthew Crooks got off eight shots.“I f—ing told them that they needed to post guys f—ing over here…I told them that f—ing Tuesday. I talked to the Secret Service guys. They’re like, ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re going to post guys over here.’ ”
Another bodycam video shows the moment an officer spots Crooks on the roof of the building just over 30 seconds before the shooting. Officers went to the building after radio calls from law enforcement that Crooks had been seen with a backpack near the location.
The video shows the patrol officer being hoisted onto the roof by another police officer, then quickly sliding back down after seeing Crooks.
“He’s armed. I saw him. He’s laying down,” the officer radioed seconds later, according to a transcript of radio calls provided by the local law-enforcement official.
“He turned around and I f—ing dropped,” the officer tells a colleague later in the video.
The officer then runs to the side of the building, waving to other officers before returning to his squad car to obtain a rifle. “F—ing this close, bro. Dude, he turned around on me,” the officer says as additional law enforcement arrives at the scene.
The officer later describes Crooks, saying he has eyeglasses, long hair and “mag s—,” presumably a reference to gun magazines. “He’s laying down, proned out, book bag next to him,” the officer says.
As other officers proceed to the roof, he warns, “Watch out cause he can f—ing come right down on you over there.”
The Journal cited law enforcement officials as saying that, throughout the rally, law enforcement was hampered by communication problems. Radio reception was poor, and there wasn’t a uniform communication channel for the event’s entire security force, a coalition that included state, local and federal agencies, according to officials. Instead most officers were only able to communicate by radio with members of their own agency, officials said, but not directly with the Secret Service.
Some 10 minutes after the assassination attempt, another officer is heard telling a fellow officer, “I thought you guys were on the roof. I thought it was you. I thought it was you.”
“No,” came the reply, with an explanation that no officers were on the roof.
“What the f—,” the officer replied in frustration. “Why were we not on the roof? Why weren’t we?”
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Federal law-enforcement officials have said that the Secret Service thought local law-enforcement officers, including snipers from the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, were supposed to secure the building from which Crooks fired.
A local law-enforcement official involved in the event planning previously said the tactical team’s heads told the Secret Service during the walk-through that its snipers would be inside the building on its second floor.
In another of the newly released videos, an officer refers to a suspicious individual who had been lost by authorities. The unidentified officer referred to “a gentleman with a flat face that we were looking for earlier. He was creeping people out.”
The officer’s account, broadcast over radio, was captured on one of the body cameras. “He was watching people out in the woods by the water tower. I’m not sure he is the gentleman down or not.”
A video shows the officer who first spotted Crooks on the roof returning to the building after the shooting and scaling the roof again, this time meeting tactical officers standing over the body of Crooks. The officer said he tried to send out an alert to other officers via radio.
“Dude, I was calling out, ‘On top of the roof!’ ” the officer says. “Were you on the same frequency?”
Near the end of one bodycam video, a tactical-unit officer refers to radio reports of Crooks wandering outside of the rally perimeter. “I’m f—ing pissed,” the officer says while pacing back and forth on the roof near Crooks’s body. “We couldn’t find him.”
Butler Township police Lt. Matthew Pearson on Thursday declined to release the names of the officers behind the body cameras, citing a continuing investigation of which they are a part. “Butler Township Police are cooperating with an internal Secret Service investigation so we cannot comment at this time,” Pearson said.
A Secret Service spokesman said the agency is reviewing bodycam footage from the July 13 rally and updating procedures to “ensure a tragedy like this never occurs again.”
“The U.S. Secret Service appreciates our local law enforcement partners, who acted courageously as they worked to locate the shooter that day,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
More footage has been released from the attempted Trump assassination
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 8, 2024
Butler police warned Secret Service to secure building 5 days before Trump rally added by Editor Two on August 9, 2024
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