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Excerpt from alaskabeacon.comWASHINGTON — Pennsylvania’s top police officer faced questions Tuesday from lawmakers who wanted details on how the U.S. Secret Service and state and local law enforcement communicated when a gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, killed one rallygoer and injured two others in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Lawmakers were aghast to learn state police relayed information to the U.S. Secret Service of a suspicious man with a range finder roughly 20 to 25 minutes prior to the July 13 shooting, and that a photo of him was texted to a phone number provided by the federal agency.
The hours-long hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security occurred as lawmakers continued to probe how an agency tasked with protecting the nation’s current and former leaders could allow a 20-year-old wielding a rifle to reach a rooftop in such close proximity to Trump.
The committee’s hearing was still ongoing when Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday following days of outrage about the agency’s failure to stop the gunman before he fired several rounds and injured the former president’s right ear. The shots were fired just as Trump turned his head.
Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris testified that in the lead up to Trump taking the stage in Butler, authorities were responding to several simultaneous incidents — heat-related illnesses among attendees, a missing 6-year-old — and they also had eyes on four suspicious individuals, including Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, who was later killed by a Secret Service counter sniper and identified as the shooter.
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