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The SWAT team and their supervisors spoke with ABC News senior investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky.
The local SWAT team assigned to assist former President Donald Trump on July 13 had no contact with Secret Service agents for security reasons before a potential killer opened fire, officials said. those officials told ABC News.
This is one component of the plans and miscommunications that resulted in a gunman killing one man, seriously injuring two others, and injuring Trump while giving a speech just days before accepting the Republican presidential nomination.
“We were meant to have a face-to-face briefing with members of the Secret Service whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, the Secret Service’s sniper leader. The Beaver County, Pennsylvania SWAT team.
“So I think it was probably a pivotal moment, where I started to think that things weren’t right because this had never happened,” Woods said. “We had no communication. “
In their first public comments since the assassination attempt, the SWAT team present that day and their supervisors spoke exclusively with Aaron Katersky, ABC News’ senior investigative correspondent. This is the first time a key member of law enforcement has appeared on the scene on July 13 has provided first-hand accounts of what happened.
They explained that they had done everything they could to try to thwart the attack, but now they had to live with this failure.
Last week’s episode led to the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. And, in the wake of the assassination attempt, a series of police, internal and congressional investigations were announced, with communications and coordination being the focus of investigators.
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The Secret Service, whose on-site team was supplemented as always by local, county, and state law enforcement, was ultimately to blame for the security of the event.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to respond directly to comments from Woods and his colleagues. He said the firm “is committed to better understanding what occurred before and after the assassination attempt on former President Trump to ensure this does not happen again. This includes full cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other applicable investigations.
Woods told ABC News he would have expected more coordination with the Secret Service and more communication between his team on the floor that day and agents with Trump’s details. The first communication between his organization and Secret Service agents on the scene that day, he said he took a position “only after the shooting. “By then, he added, “it was too late. “
Woods and the rest of the Beaver County sniper team were in position mid-morning on July 13, hours before Trump took the spot on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show outside Pittsburgh. The site is dotted with a warehouse complex, some clustered just outside where the steel detectors were installed that day.
Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, aroused suspicion among the Beaver County SWAT team, but still managed to evade law enforcement and take a position on the roof of the same building where the county’s snipers had been stationed. Although his sniper shot Crooks and alerted command to the suspicious presence, Crooks then opened fire on the former president within two hundred yards of the scene.
RELATED: FBI seeks Trump in attempted assassination investigation
Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who leads the emergency unit and SWAT team, said collaboration is key when lives are at stake.
“I think our team did everything humanly imaginable that day,” Young said. “We say so much about SWAT that we as individuals don’t mean anything until we’re a team. “
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