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According to police, the secret service ignored warnings
Massachusetts

According to police, the secret service ignored warnings

Body camera footage by a police officer who responded to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania last month shows the intra-police disputes immediately after the attack.

The video shows the officer with the body camera running through a field toward a building in the area where Trump was shot. He passes someone holding a Trump flag and continues running through a parking lot as his gun flashes in the perimeter of his camera.

“Is he hit?” he asked another officer standing outside the building.

They replied, “I’m not sure.”

Body camera footage from Butler Township Police Department officers obtained by The Intercept sheds light on the chaos among police officers responding to the attempted murder. The videos confirm earlier reports that a lack of communication and coordination between federal, state and local police led to confusion at the rally and indicated inadequate preparation. Butler police, for their part, had no police chief in the month leading up to the attack.

The footage also shows in real time the frustration of police officers in the moments immediately following the shooting, providing insight into how police respond in emergencies and how little they can actually do in an active shooter situation. The videos document the frantic nature of the response, including police questioning why no officers were posted in the building used by the shooter minutes after the shooting broke out.

Additional body camera footage shows a police officer telling his colleagues minutes after the shooting that he had warned the Secret Service well before the rally to station agents in the building used by the gunman. Additional video footage of the immediate aftermath shows a sergeant making phone calls to make sure his family and children, who had attended the rally, escaped unharmed.

In a statement to The Intercept, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency was aware that local police had released the footage and reiterated his support for local authorities who had assisted in the response on the day of the rally.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of and is reviewing the July 13 bodycam footage recently released by local law enforcement,” he said. “The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a failure of the U.S. Secret Service, and we are reviewing and updating our protection policies and procedures to ensure that a tragedy like this never happens again.” (Butler Township police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“I damn well told the secret service”

The moments immediately after police encountered the gunman and later when shots were fired were chaotic as officers from various agencies attempted to access the roof.

A Butler Township police officer helped other police teams climb onto a plastic roof to get to the roof, holding them up with cupped hands because he was worried the roof would collapse. Eventually a ladder was found. Shortly after realizing the shooter had already been defeated, the officers began to descend from the roof.

At least eight minutes after the shooting, a Secret Service agent walked to the back of the building where the police were standing.

“Is the shooter down?” he asked. “I don’t want to be nitpicky here, but is he a ‘shooter’? Did he have a gun?” the Secret Service agent asked, putting quotation marks around the word “shooter.”

“That was the report,” replied the Butler police officer.

A few minutes later, as police teams inside the building discussed the incident, two Butler officers and the Secret Service agent stood looking at the storage shed. “Did he get up that way?” asked one officer. “I have no idea,” said the other. The Secret Service agent used the ladder to get to the roof.

“I fucking told them to put the damn guys here,” the first officer said to his colleague. “I told them – the Secret Service – I fucking told them on Tuesday. I told them to put the damn guys here.”

“I thought you were on the roof?” the other policeman replied.

“No, we’re inside.”

The officer walked around the building and encountered another officer. “I wasn’t worried because I thought someone was on the roof,” the other officer said. “I thought, that’s how it is – how the hell can you lose a guy on the way there when someone’s on the roof?”

“Why weren’t we on the roof?” another officer is heard asking.

“Because I thought we were going to put people here,” the first officer said. “I talked to the Secret Service people and they said, ‘Yeah, no problem, we’re going to put people here.'” The officers repeatedly discussed how the shooter could have gotten onto the roof.

Another video from the minutes before, during and after the shooting shows an officer informing other officers that someone was on the roof of the building. Butler Township police edited out the audio from the video clip, so it’s unclear what he says to officers. He pointed to the roof, and two other officers walked around the side of the building to get a better view.

The first officer went back into the parking lot to get a look at the roof before returning to the corner of the building and pointing his weapon at the roof. A few minutes later, the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit team arrived on scene and attempted to enter the building.

Police opened the building’s door as rescue workers entered to discuss the situation with SWAT members already on the scene. A SWAT officer said an officer who climbed to the roof suffered cuts to his hands from the ladder and may need minor stitches. (Rescue team members told ABC News last month they were supposed to meet with the Secret Service at the scene before the rally, but the meeting never took place.)

“What the hell,” the officer said again, partly to himself. He walked over to another member of the emergency services and pulled him close. He lowered his voice and told the first responder again that he had warned the Secret Service to station people at the location where the shooter had struck.

“I fucking told the Secret Service to send a fucking guy here,” he said. “I fucking told them that at the meeting on Tuesday.”

As a group of officers gathered and discussed what had happened, the first officer turned off his body camera.

“My children were there”

Another clip from a sergeant’s bodycam shows him yelling at bystanders to leave the scene minutes after the shooting. Witnesses told him they saw the gunman fall to the ground. He relayed the information over the radio: “I have witnesses who say he’s down, but we haven’t confirmed it.” The sergeant gasped as he walked around asking other bystanders if they needed a medic. After confirming a suspect was down, he radioed that they needed to secure the rest of the area.

Then the sergeant called a woman. “Get out of there, I’m fine. Get out of there,” he said. “Gather everyone together, get out of there and go into the house, I’m fine.”

A few minutes later, he called again and asked someone to check on his children after he sent them home from the rally, adding that he had not been able to reach his brother and that police were not sure if there were any other shooters at the scene.

“My children were in there,” he shouted to another officer. “They were separated, I’m trying to get them home.”

After it was clear that the shooter was on the ground, officers began discussing how to handle the crowd rushing away from the scene of the rally. The sergeant radioed to ask if patrol dogs were available.

“Just as a reserve, any area would be great. I don’t know what these people are going to do,” he told the person on the radio.

Another officer pulled up and handed him a bottle of water. “Holy shit, man,” the sergeant said. The second officer told him to get in the patrol car, where there was air conditioning.

“I’m fine, man,” he said before turning off his body camera.

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