The failed assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the United States has left many unanswered questions even after more than two months. In the first assassination attempt, the Secret Service could not explain why the suspect had the opportunity to hide on a roof and shoot at Trump.
At a hearing of a bipartisan House investigation committee on Thursday (September 26), Pennsylvania State Trooper Edward Lenz testified that during the incident, a local police officer first shot and stopped Thomas Crooks, who was attempting to shoot Trump, before the Secret Service shot and killed the suspect.
Lenz, a sergeant at the Adams Township Police Department in Pennsylvania and also the commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit (ESU), stated that local law enforcement provided “two counter-assault teams, a rapid response team, three sniper teams, and support personnel, totaling 44 people, exceeding the number requested by the Secret Service. During the planning process, the Butler County ESU was never asked to protect the AGR Complex building or secure the area around it, nor were they asked to deploy sniper teams on the roof of the AGR building.”
Lenz explained that although the law enforcement team from Butler County did not deploy on the roof of the AGR Complex building and it was not within the team’s scope of responsibilities, members of the rapid response team quickly noticed several suspicious individuals near the AGR building. A sniper from Beaver County took photos of a suspicious man near the building and even captured a photo of the man using a rangefinder aiming towards the stage, who was later confirmed to be Crooks.
The sniper then reported this information to the Pennsylvania police. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that this eyewitness event occurred around 5:10 p.m. on July 13, approximately one hour and one minute before Crooks fired his weapon.
When the threat on the roof of the AGR building was confirmed, the relevant department swiftly took action. A police officer from the Butler County ESU emerged from behind Trump’s stage at the red barn and began monitoring the area of the AGR building.
According to Lenz, the officer quickly identified the source of the gunfire, located the shooter, and fired a shot at Crooks with a rifle, causing him to recoil and briefly disappear from view.
“This officer did this in less than six seconds after the gunfire began… They were approximately 110 yards away,” Lenz said.
The FBI previously stated that the Secret Service sniper took approximately 15.5 seconds to neutralize Crooks after he began shooting, while the local police officer who fired at the time did not hit Crooks.