The Reason The Secret Service Gave For Not Securing The Roof Makes No Sense

In the wake of the attempt on the life of former U.S. President Donald Trump — one of several over the years — on July 13, 2024, at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, politicians, federal agencies, and the public have begun to scrutinize how this could have happened. A Secret Service sharpshooter killed the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as he lay on a rooftop with an AR-style rifle less than 150 yards from where Trump was giving a speech. Crooks had allegedly gotten off at least eight shots, hitting Trump in the right ear, killing a rally attendee, and seriously wounding two others, before he was taken out. And the answer to the question everyone is asking about the rooftop used in the Trump assassination attempt — why did law enforcement leave it unguarded? — isn't going to satisfy many people. 

"That building in particular has a sloped roof, at its highest point," U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told ABC News. "And so, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside." Indeed, there were local police inside the building at the time of the attack, but none on the roof, where Crooks made his now-infamous assassination attempt.

How Thomas Matthew Crooks got onto the roof of the warehouse for a manufacturing company called AGR International is still unclear. It's just one of the things that don't make sense about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Stranger still, the Secret Service had identified the building as a potential vulnerability before the rally even began, two unnamed sources told NBC News. However, the Secret Service instead left the securing of that building, along with several others, to local law enforcement.

Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, said that her agency "was responsible for the inner perimeter" and "sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter." Nonetheless, many experts, including one of the unnamed NBC News sources — allegedly a former high-ranking Secret Service agent — believe the Secret Service should still have been responsible for securing the building Crooks used. "Just because it is outside of the perimeter, it doesn't take it out of play for a vulnerability, and you've got to mitigate it in some fashion," the source said.

Inside the AGR International warehouse that Crooks used for his assassination attempt were three local counter-sniper police officers, according to BeaverCountian.com. They saw Crooks near the warehouse and determined that he was "scoping out" the roof of the building. Crooks came back again, giving one of the officers an opportunity to photograph the suspect, a source told CBS News. Crooks then pulled out a rangefinder — used to measure distances. He left again, returned with a backpack, and headed towards the back of the building. One of the officers radioed into the command post about the situation, but by the time backup arrived, it was too late.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle told ABC News that there was very little time between when the officer radioed in about Crooks' suspicious movements and when the shooting began. However, a source told NBC that it ultimately fell to the Secret Service "to ensure that they are following through either beforehand or in the moment," regardless of the efforts by local law enforcement.

Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger, the top law enforcement officer in the county where the shooting took place, defended the local police. "The Secret Service ran the show," he told NBC News. "They were the ones who designated who did what. In the command hierarchy, they were top, they were No. 1." Cheatle, who said she will not be stepping down, will nonetheless be facing a House Oversight Committee in the near future, amid other investigations into how the attack happened.