Assassination attempt on Trump: Suspects are common, but police statements raise new questions

PITTSBURGH – After Pennsylvania police announced that at least two other suspicious people were spotted at the July 13 Trump rally in addition to potential assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, experts told Fox News Digital that reports of “suspicious” or “unusual” people at Secret Service events are not uncommon.

Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week that at least two other suspects were identified at the rally before Crooks launched his assassination attempt on former President Trump.

Actual “threats” are rare, and the shooter is believed to have acted alone. But the statement from the state police chief raises new questions about various aspects of the attempted assassination of Trump.

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Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office (left), speaks as Col. Christopher Paris of the Pennsylvania State Police looks on during a press conference at a police station in Butler, Pennsylvania, after former President Trump was wounded by gunfire at a campaign rally on July 13. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

Paris told lawmakers that before the deadly rally, he asked the Secret Service about a building where the Crooks later climbed and opened fire.

“We were told that Butler (Emergency Services Unit) ESU was responsible for that area, through several intelligence agents on that tour,” he said. The district administration has denied that statement.

Lawmakers have spent days questioning police chiefs about the rally’s security deficiencies, and several of them have personally visited the scene, about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh. A few days after her testimony on Monday, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned.

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Paris testified before the House Homeland Security Committee this week that at least two other people were considered suspects in addition to Crooks. The would-be assassin became “even more suspect” after authorities saw him with a rangefinder, he said.

“The (anti-sniper) teams did not focus on that area because they believed the roof/roof access of the building was covered. It was only when he started shooting that they turned their attention there.”

— Bill Gage, retired secret agent

He was also carrying a backpack and moving outside the premises, which prompted police to keep an eye on him. Officers approached him, but he ran away.

“There was a text thread that was running – they took a photo of him at some point using the rangefinder,” he told lawmakers. “The suspicions grew… I know this from an interview that was immediately forwarded to the Secret Service at the command post.”

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Thomas Matthew Crooks is believed to be the gunman in the assassination attempt on former President Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Obtained from Fox News Digital)

A person may be considered suspicious or unusual for a number of reasons, and the Secret Service has investigators on the ground who can quickly assess such individuals, experts said.

“‘Suspicious person’? Not uncommon. Very low bar. ‘Real threat’? Much rarer, and crooks have fallen into the latter category,” said Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector.

Crooks was initially seen without a weapon, so authorities considered him suspicious at that point, but not a real threat, Paris testified.

“They were looking for him when he started shooting. They arrived just a few seconds too late.”

— Bill Gage, retired secret agent

“At every single event I’ve worked, and there are thousands, there have been suspicious people and events that have had to be investigated,” said Bill Gage, a retired intelligence agent and consultant with Safehaven Security Group.

Authorities close in on the suspected gunman at the spot where he fell after U.S. Secret Service returned fire following an alleged assassination attempt on former President Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Obtained from Fox News Digital)

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In addition, police and the US Secret Service (USSS) may have different definitions of what exactly constitutes a suspect, he said.

“Why did the director of the PSP (Pennsylvania State Police) consider them suspicious? Did they approach an officer and ask Trump for an autograph? A local might find that suspicious, but to the USSS, it’s kind of normal,” he said. “Or was it something like the proverbial long trench coat on a hot day?”

Gage said that while Paris was candid in his testimony, the answers he gave raised entirely new questions.

“Rogues ‘ran away’ from the officer during the confrontation? That’s very odd behavior at an event,” he said. “Running away from police while carrying a backpack? Was that information passed on to the command post? What was communicated to the command post?”

A police officer responds during former President Trump’s rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Gage also wanted to learn more about the “text thread” that police officers allegedly used to communicate regarding Crooks’ first sighting and disappearance.

Police officer reported man at Trump rally with rangefinder 30 minutes before assassination: Source

“And that Crooks was on the roof for three minutes? Three minutes is an eternity for a sniper,” he said. “The CS teams did not focus on that area because they believed the roof/roof access of the building was covered. It was only when he started shooting that they turned their attention there.”

Former President Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

For Mauro, the burning question is where the precinct’s personnel were stationed when the Secret Service and its partners on the ground attempted to track down Crooks when intervention was deemed necessary.

“Did anyone stay in the observation post on the second floor or not?” he wondered, referring to a vantage point near where Crooks had opened fire.

Releasing the operational plan to congressional investigators would help clear up ongoing confusion about who was stationed where and why this security breach occurred, he added.

During her own testimony this week, Cheatle confirmed that Crooks had been spotted outside the security perimeter before the shooting and said authorities had been notified of reports of a suspicious person “between two and five times.” Elsewhere in her testimony, she said she believed Crooks acted alone.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on December 5, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Crooks went from being a suspect to an actual threat “seconds before the shooting began,” she added. Cheatle later resigned after bipartisan calls for her resignation.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also testified on Capitol Hill and revealed some of the information investigators were able to obtain from Crooks’ phone and laptop.

The same day he registered to attend the rally, Crooks researched previous presidential assassinations, including searching Google for the phrase “How far was Oswald from Kennedy?”

“Sometime around July 6, he started to focus very much on former President Trump and that rally,” he said.

In a later statement, the FBI said the investigation into Crooks was a top priority.

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“Since the day of the attack, the FBI has consistently and clearly maintained that the shooting was an attempted assassination of former President Trump, resulting in his injury, the death of a heroic father, and the injuries of several other victims,” ​​a spokesperson said. “This was a heinous attack, and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to finding out everything it can about the shooter and the motivation for his violence. The FBI’s Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation is ongoing.”

While the 20-year-old failed to kill the Republican presidential candidate, he did kill a bystander named Corey Comperatore, 50, and injured at least two other people in the audience, 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver. Trump, who took cover and was later photographed with blood on the right side of his head, said he was hit in the ear.

Trump said this week on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” that the Secret Service allowed him to take the stage without warning him that there was someone suspicious on the sidelines of the rally.

Fox News’ Christina Coulter and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.