Former FBI official: Secret service may have confused Trump shooters with police officers

• A former FBI official says the shooting at the Trump rally may have been the result of a Secret Service communications glitch.
• Frank Figliuzzi said agents may have mistaken the shooter for a police sniper.
• He said security protocols and coordination between the Secret Service and local police need to be improved.

A former FBI official says a communications breakdown between the Secret Service and local police may have led to President Donald Trump being shot at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI official, said the Secret Service may have confused the shooter with a Butler police officer.

In a commentary in the Daily Mail, he said it was “highly likely” that the Secret Service “would be responsible for security within a cordoned-off perimeter, while local police would be responsible for the larger area outside.”

Figluizzi suspected that Secret Service agents may have mistaken Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, for a police sniper.

Investigators said the crooks fired several shots with an AR-15 rifle from a rooftop about 150 yards away from Trump.

“We know that a Secret Service sniper must have had a clear view of the roof because the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot within seconds of opening fire on Trump,” Figliuzzi wrote.

“But why did this sniper ignore Crooks until then? One plausible explanation is that the Secret Service (which is completely independent of the FBI) ​​assumed the assassin was a police sniper, part of their security team,” Figliuzzi added.

He wrote that such a case “indicates serious communication deficiencies.”

“I would expect police and intelligence teams to not only meet and introduce themselves, but to define their respective roles in detail,” Figliuzzi said in his commentary. “They should have been able to recognize each other by appearance.”

Figliuzzi also wrote that he did not agree with the behavior of Secret Service agents during the rally, such as allowing Trump to pose for a photo with a bloody face or complying with his request to get his shoes.

“At that moment, the Secret Service had no way of knowing whether the shooter acted alone. There may have been other shooters present,” he wrote.

Figliuzzi served with the FBI for 25 years, working at its headquarters in Atlanta and Washington, DC

In 2011 he received the role of Deputy Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence DivisionHe now works as a news analyst and commentator at MSNBC.

Meanwhile, more details about Crooks have emerged. He was a dietitian at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the center said in a statement The hill on Sunday.

Crooks’ former classmate also told media that the shooter was such a poor shot that he was kicked off his high school’s rifle team. Outside of school, however, Crooks was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a club with several pistol and rifle ranges in Clairton, Pennsylvania, CBS News reported.

The crooks’ motives for the attack were unclear at the time of going to press.

Trump, for his part, has emerged encouraged from the failed assassination attempt.

On Monday night, he received a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee when he walked in with a giant Band-Aid on his ear.

At the RNC, he announced his preferred candidate: Senator JD Vance from Ohio.

Representatives for the Secret Service and Butler police did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment, sent outside regular business hours.