Col. Christopher Paris, left, Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, and Patrick Yoes, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, are sworn in to testify at the House Homeland Security Committee hearing to read about the attempt of assassination of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday at the Capitol in Washington. (Jason Andrew/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON — Two days before a gunman wounded former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service videotaped the planned crusade with members of the Pennsylvania State Police, who had been arrested on heightened security grounds.
WASHINGTON — Two days before a gunman wounded former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service videotaped the planned crusade with members of the Pennsylvania State Police, who had been arrested on heightened security grounds.
At one point, a state police official raised a question about the roof of a warehouse located less than 500 feet from the level where Trump was scheduled to speak.
The Secret Service’s reaction — according to testimony from a state police commander at a congressional hearing Tuesday — was that a local police unit would guard that building.
“We were told by several Secret Service agents that this stopover at Butler ESU was in the area,” said state police Col. Christopher Paris, referring to the Emergency Services Unit, a SWAT-style tactical unit made up of officers. several local counties.
It’s one of the most desirable new major points about the July 13 shooting that emerged from Paris’ testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee. He described a security scenario that disastrously compromised, through breakdowns in communication and accountability, the complex way a photograph of a suspicious guy is taken passed between law enforcement agencies, and the last-minute resolution of local snipers to leave an augmented viewpoint to search for the suspect on foot.
The suspect turned out to be a gunman who was going to kill the Republican presidential candidate. The would-be assassin, later known as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, used the roof of the warehouse to fire a series of shots, wounding Trump, killing one rally attendee and wounding two others.
Paris’s appearance was very different, in substance and tone, from that presented a day earlier by the then director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, in a hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the House of Representatives. representatives. Cheatle, while acknowledging the failure of her agency, frustrated the committee by continually refusing to answer questions, prompting lawmakers from both parties to call for her resignation. She stopped doing it on Tuesday.