A new Homeland Security Inspector General report details how the Secret Service failed to receive 102 radio transmissions from local law enforcement tracking the gunman before the July 2024 Trump rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, and downgrades the agency's failure to activate its anti-drone system. The report finds the service received only five phone calls and three text messages about suspect Thomas Crooks, and that the anti-drone system was offline due to a malfunction that the sole operator was not trained to fix.
A damning new report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, published Friday, documents a cascade of communication, planning, and security failures leading up to the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
As The Zioneer reported in two separate publications Friday morning, the report's central finding is that Secret Service agents received only five phone calls and three text messages about the gunman, Thomas Crooks, while local law enforcement in a separate communications room transmitted 102 radio dispatches about the intensive search for the suspect. The report concludes that the Secret Service would have either delayed Trump's speech or moved him off stage had it been aware of the ongoing manhunt.
The report also reveals that an anti-drone system was not operational because of a malfunction, and the sole operator assigned to the event lacked the training to repair it. Crooks flew a drone over the rally site for nearly nine minutes, approximately two hours before opening fire, surveying both the stage and the roof he later used for the attack. The watchdog noted the system was offline for the duration of Crooks' drone flight.
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Source and signal
- Internal intake