It has been disclosed that the gunman who tried to kill Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania last week flew a drone over the location a few hours before the incident.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to navigate the drone over the western Pennsylvania grounds and obtain aerial footage on July 13, the same day as Trump’s Butler rally.
Crooks allegedly flew the drone on a programmed flight path earlier in the day, and officials say that the predetermined path suggests Crooks had flown the small aircraft more than once to scope out the site of the rally.
The shocking revelation was made on Friday—almost a week after the ill-fated campaign event—by law-enforcement officials, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It was another illustration of how the Secret Service’s inadequate security measures left the MAGA crowd and the former president vulnerable to the deadly situation that followed.
Trump sustained a wound on his ear from a gunshot graze and one spectator was killed when at least six rounds of ammunition were fired by the assassin.
After a Secret Service sniper team returned fire, Crooks was shot and killed.
Since they failed miserably at their duty, the Secret Service has come under heavy fire, and many have called for Kimberly Cheatle, the agency’s director, to step down.
A growing number of things went wrong both before and during the assassination attempt, making the situation characterised as a massive security lapse.
In front of shocked Trump fans, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, lay down on a nearby building’s roof and fired towards the stage, as shown in a horrifying video from TMZ.
Law officers reportedly noticed him at the Trump event venue earlier and kept an eye on him because they thought something wasn’t quite right. But before the bloodshed began, they lost sight of him.
Witnesses said they alerted police to a man who was climbing on top of a building with an AR-style weapon, but he was still able to fire.
In a damning statement on Saturday night, FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said it was ‘surprising’ Crooks managed to fire off so many shots.
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., became the first lawmaker to say that Cheatle ‘needs to go.’
Speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, Cheatle claimed that agents were not positioned on top of the sloped building, deeming it too dangerous, despite images from the scene showing Secret Service snipers set up on a sloped roof behind where Trump was delivering his speech.
There was no excuse. The Secret Service were responsible for this nearly successful assassination of Trump. Like him or not, he has to be protected and the Secret Service practically invited this teenager to assassinate him, and there were so many errors and breaches of security.
What’s more crucial to know is how or where this 20-year-old obtained a rifle and explosives. He needed assistance, and this was not cheap material.
This was incompetence on par with the Keystone Cops, as it would be even more heinous and abhorrent to believe that it was intentional.
It’s unbelievable. This lad used a drone to do a scope after the Secret Service did theirs. Trump saved himself by ducking down, and security was off by a long shot (pardon the pun). His security detail was useless.
If this was a set-up, and I’m not saying that it was. This lad was not a lone wolf; he had help because he certainly wasn’t smart enough to do this alone, he would have needed help.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 