Since the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on Saturday, there have been myriad mind-boggling revelations of seeming security lapses that allowed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb a rooftop within range and direct line of sight to the former president and almost succeed in fatally wounding him.
As House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) wrote in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas:
The seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated. No assassination attempt has come so close to taking the life of a president or presidential candidate since President Reagan was shot in 1981. Had the bullet’s trajectory been slightly different, the assassination attempt on President Trump might have succeeded.
Breitbart News has put together a timeline of the events of Saturday based on reports and official statements, and will continue to update it as we find out more.
Saturday, July 13
1 p.m. Doors scheduled to open to campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, at Butler Farm Show Inc.
Crooks went through a screening area with a magnetometer and was carrying a range finder, which looks like binoculars, and was flagged. (Source: CNN).
5 p.m. Trump scheduled to deliver remarks, but is late.
Sometime before 5:11 p.m. Police allegedly spot Crooks hanging around the American Glass Research (AGR) complex more than an hour before the assassination attempt. (Source: WPXI Channel 11 News)
BETHEL PARK, PA – JULY 14: Bethel Park High School 2020 yearbook photo of Thomas Crooks as seen on Sunday July 14, 2024 in Bethel Park, PA. Cooks was named as the alledged shooter at former President Donald Trump’s Saturday rally. (Courtesy Photo)
Prior to 5:45 p.m. Another law enforcement officer who sees Crooks on the ground also calls him in as a suspicious person and takes a picture. An officer checks the grounds for Crooks at that point, but does not see him. (Source: WPXI Channel 11 News)
5:45 p.m. Beaver County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) team member stationed inside the AGR building notices Crooks scoping out a roof near the rally, calls it in and takes a photo of him. (Source: WPXI Channel 11 News)
Around 6 p.m. The officer sends the photo to command to be on the lookout. Officer then sees Crooks return to the building, carrying a backpack. He issues more warnings to command. Crooks sits down and begins looking at his phone. At this point, Trump is about an hour late. Officer then sees Crooks pull out a range finder to gauge the distance between where he was and where Trump was speaking, and he again notifies command about what he is seeing. (Source: BeaverCountian.com).
6:02 p.m. Trump takes the stage. (Source: Associated Press) Crooks is still on the ground. (Source: WPXI Channel 11 News)
Sometime after 6:02 p.m. Crooks scales the building, “behind and out of sight” of where the officers were in the building. Butler Township officers converge on the building, do a “full-perimeter walk” of the building, according to Tom Knights, manager of Butler Township. (Source: NBC News)
Two of the Butler Township police officers responding to the officer’s and other rally-goers’ warnings follow Crooks up the building but retreat when they see he has a gun. (Sources: BeaverCountian.com, WPXI Channel 11 News)
Crooks points his gun at the police officer. The officer then ducks and falls to the ground, according to Knights. Afterwards, both officers radio in that there is someone on roof with a weapon. They radio it in to a “blanket tactical channel.” (Source: NBC News)
At least a minute before the shooting at 6:11 p.m. Rally-goers alert police to Crooks being on the rooftop. (Source: CBS News/Washington Post)
6:11 p.m. Crooks fires the first shot at Trump. Manages to fire eight shots. (Source: Washington Post).
As the shots are fired, members of the Pennsylvania State Police rush to the building and begin clearing it from inside. (Source: BeaverCountian.com)
Within the next 16 seconds, two shots follow, with at least one shot killing Crooks. One was from Secret Service. It is unclear who exactly fired them and from where. (Source: Washington Post)
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