U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. claims the agency is undergoing a series of reforms following its near-disastrous failures before the shooting of former President Donald J. Trump. “What I saw made me ashamed,” Rowe said of his findings at the site of the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, which saw Trump hit in the ear, two rallygoers badly injured, and another rallygoer killed.
Speaking at a joint hearing by two U.S. Senate committees, Rowe said the Secret Service‘s failure to secure the roof from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire is indefensible. “As a career law enforcement officer and a twenty-five-year veteran with the Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured,” he said.
His disgraced predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, suggested no one was posted to the roof because it was slightly sloped, creating a “safety factor” for agents.
Rowe says future event security plans will now undergo thorough evaluations by multiple experienced supervisors due to the “failure on multiple levels” in Butler.
Texts reveal that counter-snipers sighted Crooks nearly two hours before the shooting but did not detain him or move to have Trump‘s appearance on stage delayed until he could be intercepted.