The US Secret Service had a “complacency” problem and was responsible for multiple security failures that preceded Donald Trump being shot by an attempted assassin during an election rally in Pennsylvania, the acting director of the agency said on Friday.
Communication breakdowns with local law enforcement and a “lack of diligence” hampered the Secret Service’s performance ahead of the July assassination attempt on the former US president, according to a new report that lays out a litany of missed opportunities to stop a gunman who opened fire from an unsecured roof.
In addition, Ronald Rowe Jr, the acting secret service director, said at a press conference on Friday that for some agents “there was complacency … that led to a breach of security protocols”.
Trump was hurt when a bullet zinged his ear after the gunman opened fire on an open-air rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July. A man in the crowd was killed while diving to protect his family as shots rang out, and others in the crowd were wounded.
Agents sheltered Trump while agency snipers killed the gunman. Rowe said it was a pivotal moment in Secret Service history, and that a paradigm shift in the stretched service’s operations was required.
Another potential crisis was averted last Sunday when a man was apparently spotted pointing a rifle through the fence while Trump was playing at his golf course in Florida, near his home. An agent fired at the man, who fled but was later arrested after a car chase.
On Friday, a five-page document summarizing the Secret Service report’s key conclusions found fault with local and federal law enforcement during the rally preparations and procedures in July.
Though the failed response has been documented through congressional testimony, news media investigations and other public statements, the report marked the Secret Service’s most formal attempt to catalogue the errors of the day.
“It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13 and that we use the lessons learned to make sure we do not have another mission failure like this again,” Rowe said in a statement accompanying the release of the report into the agency’s own internal investigation.
It makes clear that the agency knew even before the shooting that the rally site posed a security challenge.
Among the problems: some local police at the site were unaware of the existence of two communications centers on the grounds, meaning officers did not know that the Secret Service were not receiving their radio transmission.
Law enforcement also communicated vital information outside the Secret Service’s radio frequencies. This hampered the search for the gunman after reports came in of a man on a roof within sight of the rally’s stage.
The report’s executive summary does not identify specific individuals who may be to blame, though the Associated Press has previously reported that at least five agents have been placed on modified duty. The director at the time, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
