The sheriff of the locality where former president Donald Trump was nearly killed over the weekend confirmed that an armed officer encountered the would-be Trump assassin on the roof of a nearby building before the shooter fired into the crowd.
Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe confirmed to KDKA-TV, a Pittsburgh-area CBS affiliate, that an armed officer of Butler Township came across shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks before Crooks carried out the assassination attempt on Trump during a rally in Butler, Pa. The Associated Press first reported the confrontation, which occurred after rally attendees warned police that they had spotted the shooter on a nearby roof.
Slupe defended the officer’s decision to stand down once Crooks pointed his rifle at him as he held onto the roof, a controversial move that is already the subject of intense criticism.
“All I know is the officer had both hands on the roof to get up on the roof, never made it because the shooter had turned towards the officer, and rightfully and smartly, the officer let go,” Slupe said.
“I mean, people think the officers are supermen like you hold on the roof with one hand while you are hanging on for dear life and pull a gun out. It doesn’t work that way,” he added.
Soon after the rally began, Crooks fired into the crowd and a bullet grazed Trump’s right ear, spewing blood across his face. Secret Service agents quickly shielded Trump from further gunfire and helped him back to his feet.
Once he got back up, a defiant Trump raised his fist and chanted “fight,” as he left the stage. Trump’s resilience in the face of violence is already considered a defining moment of his political career.
Former fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed at the rally as he protected his family from bullets, leaving behind his wife and children. Two other victims were seriously wounded during the gunfire, and law enforcement killed Crooks on the scene. Explosives were later found in Crooks’s car parked outside of the Trump rally.
Several congressional committee have opened investigations into the assassination attempt and the apparent failure of the Secret Service to clear the rooftop the shooter used. The FBI is leading law enforcement’s investigation into what happened alongside federal, state, and local partners.
Before the shooting, witnesses appeared to alert police officers to Crooks’s whereabouts and urged them to track him down. Slupe confirmed that officers were alerted to a suspicious individual and began searching for him.
“I don’t want to say this or that when I don’t know. Let’s be fair, let’s let the investigation take its course, and we are all going to learn something from this. There is not just one entity responsible; the Secret Service plays a key role in protecting, in this case, former President Trump, but they don’t act alone. The Secret Service receives support from local police departments,” Slupe said of the investigation.
“There is an immediate ring around Trump, which is manned by the Secret Service, but then, there is a secondary ring further out, which is manned largely by local and state police. The assailant was in that secondary ring.”