US Secret Service admits failures in review of shooting at Trump rally

Internal review identifies poor planning, communication breakdown and ‘complacency’ of some agents.

The United States Secret Service has acknowledged a series of security failures it made during a July campaign rally where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was shot at and wounded in the ear.

In a review of the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service identified “deficiencies” in advanced security planning and poor coordination with local police, said the agency’s acting director, Ronald Rowe.

“While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols,” Rowe told a news briefing on Friday.

Questions over the competency of the elite US law enforcement agency have swirled since a gunman perched on a rooftop opened fire at Trump during the rally, grazing the former president in the ear and hitting three people in the crowd, one fatally.

Congressional officials lambasted the agency for failing to clear the area or respond quickly to the attacker, who local officers were alerted to up to 20 minutes before the shooting.

The backlash pushed the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, to resign. Several other agents were placed on leave.

“This was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service. It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this again,” Rowe said.

What are the review’s findings?

The agency’s major failures, set out in a five-page report on Friday, were poor communication with local law enforcement, an “over-reliance” on mobile devices, and not resolving “line-of-sight issues”, said Rowe.

While the building the attacker climbed on to, some 150 yards (137m) from Trump, had been pinpointed as a potential hazard, officials failed to take the right steps to address it, Rowe said. Instead of placing snipers on the roof, only a tactical team from local law enforcement was stationed on the second floor.

Law enforcement also relied too heavily on mobile phones, instead of the Secret Service’s radio system, to send vital information, delaying communications.

The breakdown was especially problematic for Trump’s protective detail, “who were not apprised of how focused state and local law enforcement were in the minutes leading up to the attack on locating the suspicious subject”.

The Congressional task force investigating the attempted assassination of Trump issued a statement on Friday encouraging Rowe to “follow through” on holding employees accountable and to cooperate with its independent investigation.

“Complacency has no place in the Secret Service,” it said.

‘Tremendous threat’

Rowe said the Secret Service needed additional funding, personnel and equipment to complete a “paradigm shift … from a state of reaction to a state of readiness”.

The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill on Friday to boost Secret Service protection for presidential candidates to the same level as sitting presidents and vice presidents.

The bill awaits a vote in the Senate and a signature by President Joe Biden before it becomes law.

Rowe said that Trump is now being given the same level of protection as the president.

Those security needs were underscored during a second apparent assassination attempt on Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15.

A gunman hiding in the bushes near where Trump was playing was apprehended by the Secret Service before he fired a shot.

“What occurred on Sunday demonstrates that the threat environment in which the Secret Service operates is tremendous,” Rowe said.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies