Secret Service responsible for communication failures during Trump rally shooting: report
The U.S. Secret Service released a five-page report Friday summarizing the communication breakdowns with local law enforcement and the failed response that led to the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump's life at a rally in Pennsylvania.
"It's important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another mission failure like this again," Acting director Ronald Rowe Jr. said in a statement.
The report marks the Secret Service's most formal attempt to catalog the errors of the day and is being released amid fresh scrutiny following at his golf club in West Palm Beach.
"After a review of the planning, event details, and coordination with partner agencies regarding the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13th, our Mission Assurance investigation is nearing completion," stated. "As I have said, this was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service."
The report details a series of "communications deficiencies" before the shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper after firing eight rounds in Trump's direction from the roof of a building less than 150 yards from where Trump was speaking. It makes clear that the Secret Service knew even before the shooting that the rally site posed a security challenge.
Some of the problems listed include local police not being aware of the existence of two communications centers on the grounds and law enforcement communicating important information outside the Secret Service's radio frequencies, the report obtained by The Associated Press detailed.
"The failure of personnel to broadcast via radio the description of the assailant, or vital information received from local law enforcement regarding a suspicious individual on the roof of the AGR complex, to all federal personnel at the Butler site inhibited the collective awareness of all Secret Service personnel," the report said.
Rowe mentioned in a release that "a shift in paradigm" is needed in how operations are conducted after the July shooting and the attempt by Ryan Wesley Routh to kill Trump at his golf course.
On Monday, Rowe addressed the growing challenges the agency is facingthis election season as political tensions spill over into violence.
"Our folks are rising to this moment but it requires us to all have good conversations and make sure that we're getting the Secret Service where it needs to be," Rowe said. He emphasized the agency's 8,300 agents are stretched thin, particularly those assigned to protective operations."
Another issue, according to Rowe, involves the funding level not being adequate enoughto keep up with the demands of an election season full of unprecedented threats.
The Secret Service currently operates with a $3.6 billion budget, of which over $1 billion is dedicated to protective operations, according to agency budget documents obtained by .
President Joe Biden recently said the Secret Service and that Congress should move to aid the agency.
The House on Friday unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to boost Secret Service protection for Trump and Kamala Harris as well as the vice presidential nominees.The vote for the was 405-0.
