WASHINGTON: The US Secret Service came under intense scrutiny on Sunday after a gunman managed to evade its agents and open fire on former President Donald Trump at a political rally, with Republican leaders vowing swift investigations and President Joe Biden calling for an independent review.
The gunman, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, injured Trump and killed a rally attendee from a rooftop perch around 140m from the stage where the former president was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, officials said.
Trump, 78, who like other former presidents has lifetime protection by the Secret Service, was swarmed by agents who then rushed him away.
Milwaukee prepares for ‘pressure cooker’ Republican convention
Agents killed the shooter, identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and an AR-15-style semiautomatic was recovered near his body, officials said.
Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who retired in 2020, said agents would have surveyed all the rooftops with a line of sight ahead of time.
“This person either concealed themselves until they became a threat, or were not a threat until they revealed their weapons,” said Eckloff.
“There will be an intensive review” of the incident and “there’s going to be a massive realignment,” said Joseph LaSorsa, a former Secret Service agent who served on the presidential detail. “This cannot happen.”
Mike Johnson, speaker of the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives, said panels in the chamber will call officials from the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for hearings. “The American people deserve to know the truth,” he said.
The House oversight panel called Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify on July 22.
The Secret Service, tasked with protecting current and former presidents, is part of the Department of Homeland Security. The department’s Office of the Inspector General is responsible for conducting oversight of Secret Service operations.
A spokesman for the inspector general’s office did not respond to questions about whether it would launch its own inquiry. The FBI said in a statement following the shooting that it would be the lead federal law enforcement agency in the investigation into the shooting.
In a statement, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency had “added protective resources (and) technology (and) capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.” Guglielmi denied accusations that the agency had rebuffed requests for more security resources from Trump’s team.
Mood in Milwaukee
Meanwhile, residents and volunteers were seen urging a lowering of tensions as Republicans descend on their city for a national convention, just a day after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.
The lakeside municipality in battleground Wisconsin finds itself in the eye of a political and security maelstrom following the spasm of violence that has shaken the 2024 campaign and prompted questions about the country’s political polarisation.
Police were enforcing a buffer zone in the fenced-off blocks around Fiserv Forum, the sports arena where some 2,400 Republican delegates from around the country will gather to formalise Trump as the party’s nominee.
Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2024
