Law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt on former United States president Donald Trump said that the Secret Service was warned about the ‘threat’ 10 minutes before Trump took the stage in Pennsylvania, but allowed him to go anyway,
They told lawmakers that Secret Service snipers spotted Thomas Crooks on the roof 20 minutes before he fired his first shot. The agency received a warning about a “character of suspicion” on the premises over an hour before the deadly shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania took place on Saturday, according to the sources.
However, as per the sources, the agency was not aware of Crooks having a gun when the warning came in.
Senator John Barrasso said that he was identified as a character of suspicion because he had a rangefinder as well as a backpack. And this was over an hour before the shooting actually occurred.
He added, “So, you would think that over the course of that hour, you shouldn’t lose sight of the individual. Somebody ought to be following up on those sorts of things. There is no evidence of that happening at all.”
Thomas Crooks was identified as a person of interest at 5:10 pm, spotted by a rangefinder at 5:30 pm, then spotted on the roof by the Secret Service at 5:52 pm and that he fired shots at 6:12 pm.
Earlier, it was not clear that the local police who spotted Crooks outside the perimeter of the rally had informed Secret Service agents in time. But, with new details surfacing, it is confirmed that the agency received the warning.
Senator Barrasso stated that the top agents in the Secret Service at the rally were speaking to the local police officials when the assassination attempt on Donald Trump took place.
He further demanded the resignation of the Secret Service chief, Kimberly Cheatle.
Cheatle said that she does not have all the information regarding the shooting, but there was a “very short” window between Crooks being identified as suspicious and the shooting, which clipped Donald Trump. A spectator who attended the rally was killed, while two others were critically injured.
She further stated that the agency decided not to station a sniper on the roof of the AGR International building, from which 20-year-old Thomas Crooks will launch his deadly rifle assault, because it was too slanted.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point,” Cheatle stated. “And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we would want to put somebody up on a sloped roof.”
This decision eventually ended up providing Crooks with an ideal sniper’s spot on the silver platter.
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