New footage reveals moment local cops spotted Trump shooter — and the chaos that followed

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

New body cam footage shows the moment when a police officer climbed up on the roof where the Trump gunman was perched, moments before the shooting began during the July 13 rally in Pennsylvania.

Separate footage also shows local police officers complaining that they told the Secret Service days earlier to place officers near the building which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks used to take aim at former President Donald Trump.

The newest footage was released by Pennsylvania authorities as both state and federal authorities continue to investigate the July 13 rally shooting that injured the former president and two spectators, and left one man dead. Crooks fired from an unsecured rooftop about 500 feet from the former president. Trump turned his head just in time to avoid a significant injury.

Secret Service officials have admitted a “failure” in the shooting and making sure the area was secure. On Thursday, investigators released new body camera footage showing Butler County police confronting Crooks moments before the shooting, but unable to stop him before he shot at the rally.

Some of the footage shows the local officer being hoisted up onto the roof by another cop and then quickly dropping down again after he spots the shooter. The released footage was muted so no audio could be heard.

The officer later revealed to his fellow cops that Crooks pointed the gun at him before he hopped down and ran towards his car, eventually getting a rifle.

About 40 seconds after the encounter, Crooks turned back towards Trump, firing eight shots and striking Trump in the ear. Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper seconds later.

“F****** this close bro. Dude, he turned around on me,” the officer who spotted Crooks tells a fellow officer.

When one officer asks where the shooter is located, the officer says “He’s straight up.”

“Who’s got eyes on him? He was right where you picked me up, bro. He was on that left side,” the officer says.

A voice can then be heard coming from a radio, saying “We have two civilians – tending to them. I need an ambulance in the back.”

Another video, shared by Butler police, shows one officer telling colleagues shortly after the shooting that he had told the Secret Service to place officers at the building that Crooks used to take aim at Trump.

“I f****** told them they need to post the guys f****** over here,” he says. “I told them that, the f******, the Secret Service, I told them that f******* Tuesday. I told them to post f****** guys over here.”

One officer responded, saying that he wasn’t “even concerned about it because I thought someone was on the roof. I thought that’s how we — how in the hell can you lose a guy walking back here?”

“I talked to the Secret Service guys, they were like, ‘Yeah, no problem, we’re going to post guys over here,’” the first officer adds, in the footage.

An officer describes via radio a suspicious person who had been lost by law enforcement as “a gentleman with a flat face that we were looking for earlier. He was creeping people out.”

“He was watching people out in the woods by the water tower. I’m not sure he is the gentleman down or not,” he adds.

Shortly after the shooting, another officer arrives at the warehouse and tells a colleague, “I thought you guys were on the roof. I thought it was you. I thought it was you.”

The officer explained that no officers were on the roof.

“What the f***,” the first officer says. “Why were we not on the roof? Why weren’t we?”

Federal officials have said that the Secret Service thought that Butler County Emergency Services Unit snipers would be covering the rooftop from where Crooks took aim. However, a local official previously said that tactical team leaders told the Secret Service their snipers would be inside the building on the second floor.

The Butler team didn’t want snipers on the roof because of the heat exposure. The official added that the sloped roof would have obscured a number of vantage points.

The Secret Service had limited contact with local police on the day of the rally.

Many politicians and Americans have questioned the Secret Service and the police actions on that day. Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the wake of the shooting, and after her disastrous congressional testimony amid the federal investigation.

During a press conference on Friday, acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe said “we should have had more of a presence” at the building, which was just outside of the security perimeter set up ahead of the rally.

“This was a Secret Service failure,” he added. “That roofline should have been covered. We should have had better eyes on that.”