A local law enforcement commissioner revealed during a House Homeland Security hearing on Tuesday stunning new details about the security failures that led to the near assassination of Donald Trump, raising more questions for the embattled U.S. Secret Service.
Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris’s striking testimony comes just one day after now-resigned Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee and largely declined to answer questions about the shooting at the former president’s Pennsylvania rally.
Paris told lawmakers about the communications between the Secret Service and local law enforcement who initially spotted Thomas Matthew Crooks, the would-be assassin. He also described a more detailed timeline from when officers first spotted Crooks in the crowd to when the 20-year-old opened fire on Trump.
Here’s what to know from Tuesday’s hearing:
Officers left post to look for Crooks
Two local law enforcement officers left a building with vantage points overlooking the roof where Crooks took aim at the former president before he fired shots, Paris testified.
Paris said that two officers with the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, a tactical force with sniper capabilities, left their posts in the building to look for a suspicious individual they spotted first and alerted to other law enforcement. That person was Crooks.
The lawmakers watched video taken during a congressional tour of the rally site Monday, from the building where the ESU officers left their post, showing the roof where Crooks eventually climbed and took shots at Trump.
“So are you then saying, to your knowledge, those ESU officers left the location where they could look out the window to go in search of this person?” Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina asked.
“That is my understanding,” Paris said, adding that the officers went searching with other local officers in the area. “I don’t want to establish a timeline minute by minute because we don’t have that yet.”
Bishop also questioned whether the two officers who left their post could have seen Crooks climb on top of the roof if they had stayed put. Paris said he didn’t know.
Crooks fired eight times
Investigators believe that Crooks fired eight rounds before he was killed by counter-snipers, Paris said.
“I believe that the number is eight,” Paris told the committee. “Eight casings have been recovered.”
Officials had previously only confirmed that the shooter fired multiple times at the rally earlier this month.
Paris also told members of Congress that “several Secret Service agents” told the state police area commander during a walkthrough of the area before the rally that the Butler County Emergency Services Unit was responsible for securing the building where Crooks fired the shots.
Minutes, not seconds
A municipal officer came face-to-face with Crooks several minutes before the would-be assassin fired on Trump, Paris testified.
Paris said that the brief confrontation came as a pair of local officers who had learned of Crooks’s position on the roof attempted to climb up and confront the shooter. But while the officer was “dangling” from the roof, Crooks aimed his rifle at the officer and the officer fell.
“If the first shots rang out at 18:11 (6:11 pm), the hoisting up of the officer occurred probably no more – again I’m going to give you a time but I want to just put it in the context of a sequence of events – I would say at most two and a half to three minutes before that first shot rang out,” Paris said.
“It was minutes. It was a very short period of time,” Paris said.
“But not seconds?” Rep. Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat, asked.
“I would say minutes,” Paris said, adding he was answering to the best of his knowledge.
Paris said that whether, or when, the confrontation was relayed to the Secret Service or other law enforcement agencies at the rally “remains under investigation.”
Communications between Secret Service and local law enforcement
Paris also detailed communications among law enforcement about Crooks before Trump took the stage at the rally earlier this month.
According to Paris, “there was a text thread going” with members of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, some of whom initially spotted Crooks and reported him as a suspicious individual.
“At some point when he utilized the range finder, the suspicion was heightened,” Paris said of Crooks.
State Police then received a call and a text from the ESU about Crooks’s activity that they immediately relayed to Secret Service. Local, state and federal law enforcement were in a unified command post at the rally.
State Police “verbally turned right around and gave it to the Secret Service,” Paris said.
