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Local law enforcement officers who worked former President Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, told lawmakers Thursday that the Secret Service never asked them to cover the area where a gunman accessed a roof and shot at the Republican presidential candidate.
One of the officers testified that during the planning for the rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds, he told the Secret Service that local cops didn’t have the manpower to cover a large building of interconnected warehouses in the adjacent AGR International complex.
The Secret Service responded that “they would take care of it,” Drew Blasko, a patrol officer for the Butler Township Police Department, said.
Mr. Blasko was one of three local law enforcement officials who testified Thursday before a bipartisan House task force investigating the two assassination attempts on Mr. Trump.
Thursday’s hearing focused on the July 13 attempt in Butler in which a gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed onto the roof of the AGR building and fired eight rounds toward the stage where Mr. Trump was speaking.
One of his bullets grazed Mr. Trump in the ear and others hit rallygoers, one of whom was killed and two of whom were severely injured.
Edward Lenz, commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit who was involved in the planning, said at no point did the Secret Service ask his unit to cover the AGR building.
The Secret Service did request his unit to provide some sniper teams but didn’t give guidance on what areas to cover, he said.”
It was our decision to place those snipers on the second floor of the AGR building,” Mr. Lenz said. “They were aware of that.”
Counter snipers from Butler and Beaver County posted on the second floor of the AGR building and, through a window, oversaw the stage and venue where most people gathered, Mr. Lenz said.
“They knew where we would be, what our plan was,” he said of the Secret Service, noting the agency didn’t provide any feedback or objection to that plan.
“There were additional things that probably need covered, but they never asked us to do that,” Mr. Lenz said.
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