Did a DJI drone enable the attack on a Trump rally?

On July 13, 2024, former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Investigators now say the shooter used a DJI drone for reconnaissance before the attack, which made it much easier for him to carry out the attack.

According to local law enforcement, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks flew a DJI drone on a pre-programmed flight path to scout the rally site before the event. Equipped with a high-resolution camera, the drone captured detailed aerial photographs of the area, giving Crooks more insight than a satellite image of the area on Google Maps. Federal authorities also say the drone flew more than once as Crooks researched and scouted the event site to precisely plan his attack.

The drone reportedly flew over the Butler Farm Show grounds several hours before the rally to map the stage area and possible escape routes. This surveillance data helped Crooks locate a rooftop about 400 feet from the stage, where he later positioned himself with an AR-15 rifle. As Trump began his speech, Crooks opened fire, wounding Trump and several other people. Trump suffered an injury to his right ear but survived the assassination attempt. Law enforcement officials later found the drone and its controller in Crooks’ vehicle.

At this point, drone surveillance was added to the list of security failures that allowed the gunman to nearly kill the former president.

The Secret Service did not respond to specific questions about drone flight rules for such an event, but it is common for federal agencies to ban drones over the areas they secure. According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records, a temporary no-fly zone (TFR) was only put in place for a period of one hour and 55 minutes on July 13 at the rally site.

Could drones have prevented the attack on Trump?

While the increasingly accessible and capable commercial drone technology might have become a security risk in the hands of a malicious actor in this case, security experts argue that improved drone surveillance and drone countermeasures could have potentially prevented the attack. A drone with a thermal imaging sensor would even have quickly spotted the gunman hiding on the roof.

It is not clear why the Secret Service did not use drones at the Trump rally, as the agency has spent at least $400,000 on drones since 2021. As David Young, a drone expert and officer with the Graham Police Department in North Carolina, said Forbes“A drone could have warned them of a gunman climbing onto a roof. But there will always be that need for soldiers on the ground to be the final piece of the puzzle to stop that threat.”

Following the incident, calls have been made for stricter regulations and improved detection technologies to reduce the risks associated with drones. The integration of anti-drone systems at high-profile events is seen as a necessary step to prevent similar attacks in the future.

Still, drone technology researcher Faine Greenwood stresses that the drone data Crooks collected was probably not in any way decisive. But the fact that the shooter was able to fly a private drone over the site hours before the rally with impunity means the Secret Service missed a crucial opportunity to catch him in advance.

“If the Secret Service had had basic drone defense tools in the early morning of July 13, they probably would have caught Thomas Crooks long before the Trump rally began – and we could have prevented all of this,” Greenwood summarizes.

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