An officer from the local SWAT team assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, revealed a critical lapse in communication with the U.S. Secret Service prior to the shooting incident.
Jason Woods, the lead sharpshooter for the Beaver County SWAT team, told ABC News, “We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived. That never happened.”
Celebrate Trump's Historic 2024 Victory with the Exclusive Trump 47th President Collection!
MORE NEWS: NBC Exposed by Former Anchor: 75-Person Unit, Beginning of Trump Derangement Syndrome [WATCH]
Woods explained that this lack of coordination likely contributed to the critical failure in planning, which resulted in 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks wounding Trump, killing spectator Corey Compartore, and injuring two others before being shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.
“I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” Woods said. “We had no communication.”
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, and both law enforcement and congressional probes have been announced.
Woods mentioned that his team was in position hours before Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds, but their first communication with the Secret Service occurred only after the shooting. “By then, it was too late,” he noted.
Despite a Beaver County sniper taking pictures of Crooks and calling into command about his suspicious presence, the gunman still managed to position himself on the roof of a building. This critical lapse has led members of Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers to question why they were not informed about the local police’s observations.
Trump’s advisers, who initially thought the sounds of shots were fireworks, expressed confusion over why they were not alerted to the potential threat, which could have allowed them to consider delaying Trump’s speech. “Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ something. Nobody said — I think that was a mistake.”
Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who oversees the Emergency Services Unit and SWAT team, defended his group’s actions, stating, “We did everything humanly possible that day.”
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.
If you saw a man with a rifle scaling a building and getting in position to shoot at a presidential candidate and you hesitated for any reason to take the shooter out…you did NOT do everything humanly possible.
Of course Detective Patrick Young’s team did everything possible, they’re all country folk thus they are all Trump supporters. You know this PO’d the heck out of them too!
It was my understanding that there was NO secret service at the rally. They quadrupled the security at a Harris event, and used DHS agents for Trump. DHS agents are NOT the same as the SS in way of training and purpose.
Nothing suspicious about this…
An obvious set-up. Even cursory audio analysis (signatures, not echo positioning) yields at least two shooters. As soon as you open that can of worms, it becomes a conspiracy, plain and simple. It’s too bad people had to die for this disgusting display of elite “election interference”, and it’s too bad many good people will have to carry this with them because of this subterfuge.
How many massive gaffs have to happen before it’s mathematically impossible to be accidental? That it was a planned attack? For anyone with any amount of intelligence, it’s clear we’ve crossed that line. JFK much? But January 6 was an insurrection … paaleeez. 🙄
Had to go to ABC website to see the video. ABC is weak. Regardless,
President Trump should hire his own security or his advance team should be on the ball with locals prior to events. And not leaving it to anyone who is anti-Trump or has a history of TDS.