Law enforcement officials point to communication failure during Trump’s first assassination attempt

Washington — The House task force charged with investigating the near assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, heard from local law enforcement and a medical examiner about what happened on July 13, when the former president was shot and one rallygoer was killed.

During the hearing, local officers testified to the convoluted communication set up that day, where multiple different groups of officers where on separate radios, all separate from the Secret Service’s own channel.

The hearing comes the day after a bipartisan committee in the Senate released a damning report highlighting key failures by the Secret Service that day, including the lack of decision-making and leadership structure.

Those failures, the report said, led to significant lapses in security measures, including a denial of resources and lack of decision making around who was responsible for what area of the rally, including the cluster of buildings the shooter climbed.

The House task force hearing, instead, focused on local law enforcement and their actions around that day. Witnesses include a local police officer patrolman and sergeant as well as a Pennsylvania State Police officer and medical examiner.

In the minutes before Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump, calls of a man on the roof went out to different channels, all set up to go through two different communication posts, according to testimony Thursday. Those calls never made it to the Secret Service agents on Trump’s detail.

Members also highlighted how cell systems established in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were operating well while normal cell phone connection was spotty and became an issue for local officers as they tried to share early pictures of Crooks.

Those systems, such as FirstNet – built for emergency responders to communicate with each other in moments of crisis – worked that day, Edward Lenz, the commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, told the task force.

“They worked the entire time,” Lenz said.

Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida noted that 45 minutes before the shooting, some officers were unable to receive photos taken of Crooks that day, while others, who were on FirstNet, could.

“We created a solution, and yet it’s 2024, and we’re still not implementing that solution at the highest levels of our security agencies” to keep Trump safe, Moskowitz said.

Local officers also testified to the lack of meetings with Secret Service and no direction on certain areas of coverage, including the buildings Crooks climbed.

The task force, which was recently expanded by the House to include in its investigation the second attempted assassination of Trump in Florida this month, has previously visited the rally site in Pennsylvania and has met with and interviewed local and federal officers involved in the security and subsequent investigations into that day.

The Secret Service, despite initially blaming local law enforcement for the catastrophe in Butler, has repeatedly said the agency is fully to blame for the failures that day. Questions remain, however, why local officers were not able to stop Crooks from climbing on top of a group of nearby building with a rifle, despite prior warnings of Crooks both on the ground and on the rooftop minutes before he began firing. Crooks was killed by Secret Service agents at the scene moments after the shooting.

Copyright Associated Press