Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said on Friday the agency takes full responsibility for the tragic events at former President Donald Trump’s rally last month, pledging changes such as flying drones.
“This was a mission failure,” said Rowe at a press conference in Washington.
Rowe replaced Kimberly Cheatle as director of the Secret Service amid intense scrutiny after she resigned in the wake of the attempted assassination of Trump, which saw one rallygoer killed and two more injured in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was struck at the tip of his ear by a bullet fired by 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks while he spoke at a campaign rally. Crooks, who fired several bullets, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
But agents should have had eyes on the roofs and other vantage points, Rowe said. And despite offers by local enforcement to fly drones, the Secret Service didn’t put one up.
That will change, Rowe said.
“We thought we might have had it covered with the human eye,” he said. “But clearly we are going to change our approach now, and we are going to leverage technology and put those unmanned aerial systems up.”
“We did not have a drone on site. We did not put a drone up. Based on the information I have right now, I am aware that there was a request from a local agency to offer to fly a drone on that day. And that is also part of the mission assurance review that I’ve asked to get some better insight in,” Rowe added.
Rowe said that the Secret Service also failed to communicate with local law enforcement over the radio at the rally. He said that the agency “fell short” of their responsibility to ensure Trump’s safety. “I’m working to make sure that this failure does not happen again,” he said.
Local police had identified Crooks as a suspect over an hour before the incident, but the Secret Service failed to secure the warehouse he fired from, which local police couldn’t cover.
Congress, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, and an independent review directed by President Joe Biden have been launched into the assassination attempt.
The Secret Service’s own Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting a mission assurance review. Rowe said disciplinary action would be taken if necessary, and procedures would be changed.
There should have been more of a physical law enforcement presence on site, Rowe said, given how close the building used by the shooter was to the stage where Trump spoke. If no law enforcement presence on the roof, there should have been “better security” preventing someone from getting up there, he said.
“That building was very close to that outer perimeter and we should have had more of a presence,” he said.
It’s hoped that a larger physical presence of law enforcement on site will deter future attempts.
“We want to deter people from even thinking about doing something like this again,” Rowe said.
Rowe also commended the bravery of the Secret Service agents who responded during the assassination attempt, noting their swift action to shield Trump’s body with their own “within three seconds of bullets ringing out in an unflinching act of bravery.”
