How can a gunman in front of some viewers? shot at the former president at a campaign rally guarded by federal and local law enforcement?
What follows is the daunting and unanswerable question facing the country and its security officials Donald Trump said that he received a wound in his right ear he left the stage with a bloody head while speaking in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The agency says Secret Service agents shot and killed the gunman immediately after the shooting. One spectator was killed and two more were injured, but it is not yet known who shot them.
The attack, in which an unknown gunman fired multiple shots at the stage from a rooftop outside the stage’s security perimeter, appeared to be perhaps the biggest assassination attempt since President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded outside a Washington hotel. 1981.
Security experts said it would be difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate every threat, especially with long-range weapons and open-air events.
But some said ordinary precautions should have prevented the shooter from climbing onto a nearby rooftop.
Steve Nottingham, a former SWAT commander in Long Beach, California, called Saturday’s shooting a “major security failure.”
He has handled security details for visiting world leaders, including presidents, and now trains officers on how to respond to critical incidents. He pointed to possible failures in pre-incident intelligence and real-time monitoring of where the gunman might fire.
“They were behind the curve because they had to cover those spots ahead of time,” Nottingham said.
Jim Cavanaugh, a retired special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said he was surprised that the shooter was able to take a high position within rifle range of the rally area, which he said he had learned from the Secret Service.
“When I’m with them, every high ground is taken over by them or the local SWAT police,” Cavanaugh said. “No one is allowed to walk on the roof. They command a high place.”
He said a high-powered rifle like an AR-15 can hit targets 200 yards away. Based on an analysis of Google Earth images, NBC News found that Trump was about 148 meters from the roof where the shooter was found dead.
Cavanaugh added: “It’s amazing to me that someone could be in a high-ranking position that they don’t know about after being privy to the details of the Secret Service.”
Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens defended the Secret Service at a news conference after the shooting.
“It’s extremely difficult to have an open space for the public and protect it from any threat against a very determined attacker,” Bivens said. “It’s a big lift.”
“The investigation will really give us an opportunity to look at where any failures occurred and what can be done better in the future,” he said.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FBI is leading the investigation, including members of the crisis response team and technicians responding to the evidence, it said in a statement late Saturday.
Last month, as the presidential campaign heated up, the Secret Service said it was increasing the size of the detail assigned to Trump. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said at the time that security was increased “to ensure the highest level of security not only for crime scenes, but also for travel between incidents.”
Perhaps the first sign that something was amiss when Trump spoke on Saturday was when audience members said they saw a man with a bear crawling on a nearby roof with a rifle. One recalled trying to get the attention of law enforcement.
“The police are running there, on the ground. We say, “Oh man, there is a guy with a rifle on the roof,” the witness said He told BBC News about it. “And the cops were like, ‘Huh, what?’ They didn’t seem to know what was going on. We say, ‘Here on the roof. We can see it from here. We see it. He’s crawling.’”
The witness said that a few minutes later the man opened fire.
Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, said at a press conference that law enforcement did not know the man was on the roof until they started shooting.
“It’s surprising,” Rojek admitted when pressed by a reporter about the number of shots the gunman was able to fire.
He referred questions about security measures in advance to the Secret Service.
At the front row of the rally, attendees heard a series of pops and saw Secret Service agents rush onto the stage. Someone who identified herself as Erin told NBC News that she saw blood in Trump’s ear. He said he did not fear for his safety. “We were just worried about him,” he said, referring to Trump.
Trump He wrote about it on Truth Social a few hours later, a bullet “pierced the top of my right ear.”
“I knew right away that something was wrong because I heard a buzzing sound, a shot and immediately felt a bullet go through my skin,” Trump wrote. “There was a lot of bleeding, so I realized what was going on.”
Former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras said it’s impossible to eliminate every potential threat in a situation like Saturday’s.
Poumpuras said outdoor rallies pose major security challenges given the availability of high-powered weapons.
“Somebody can be far away and hit your target from a really long distance, and there are weapons out there that allow you to do that,” said Poumpuras, who has defended multiple presidents, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush. His 12 years in the Secret Service.
“Let’s say you hunted the whole area. You have magnetometers; you have a tactical element. Everything is closed and tight. How do you protect this outer perimeter? How far are you going? And can you cover everything? This is a problem.”
He added: “How do you secure all those high positions when you have weapons that can fire long distances whether someone is in a high position or not? That’s what you’re up against.”
Retired New York police officer Jillian Snider, who often provides detailed coverage of political events, said it is common for law enforcement to conduct a perimeter check several hundred yards before such an event.
“That doesn’t mean someone can’t sneak into one of these positions later, especially if it’s someone who’s done some pre-planning,” said Snyder, an assistant professor of criminal justice at John Jay College. “There are a lot of places to hide in this area and you can’t control every possible position.”
“Anyone motivated to do something like this will find a way to get away with it,” he said.