Police bodycam footage from the day Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Donald Trump‘s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shows an officer trying to get onto the roof and spotting the shooter mere seconds before the first shots were fired.
In the newly released videos, a Butler Township Police Department officer is seen climbing onto a fellow officer’s back to try and get to the gunman on top of the warehouse that was just outside the security perimeter where the former president was speaking on July 13.
Dropping back to the ground, the officer runs to his car and fetches his gun when the audio on the bodycam kicks in.
“F**king this close bro,” the officer can be heard saying. “Dude, he turned around on me.”
It has been previously reported that Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer just before he dropped back to the floor. Moments later, the teen opened fire, grazing Trump’s right ear with a bullet, killing a rallygoer and injuring two others.
The video is one of 12 released by police in Butler, nearly a month after the assassination attempt.
Later in the same video, the officer makes it onto the roof where Crooks’ body lay, blood visible on his face and backpack laying nearby.
“So much for a picture with Trump,” another officer is heard saying, while another states that officers had been watching Crooks but lost sight of him.
Officers tried to reach Crooks
In other footage, police can be seen trying for several minutes to reach the roof in the minutes before and just after the shooting, scrambling to find ladders and trying to lift each other up to get to the gunman.
It has been reported that police were looking for Crooks in the minutes before the shooting after bystanders flagged him as suspicious, but had lost sight of him.
Different officers are heard saying that snipers were on the second floor inside the commercial building to observe the crowd, but no one was deployed on the roof. The video shows the frantic moments after the first shots were fired and reveals local law enforcement’s apparent frustration with the Secret Service detail on site.
“I f**king told them they need to post the guys f**king over here,” one cop is heard on his bodycam. “The secret service. I told them f**king Tuesday. I told them to post f**king guys over here.”
That frustration is voiced by others in the minutes following the shooting, with one heard saying “Somebody f**ked up.”
Cops are heard discussing who was where around the site, with confusion over responsibilities shared among local and state police, as well as the Secret Service.
While agents were posted at the building and around the site, the Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny in the weeks since the rally, with Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. saying on August 2 that the agency took “full responsibility” for what had happened.
Rowe said agents did not know Crooks had a weapon until he opened fire but added that it was a member of the Secret Service counter-sniper team who killed him.
Chaos in the minutes after the shooting
The bodycam footage released by Butler police show civilians fleeing the rally site, saying they could see the shooter on the roof, while others try to work out if anyone else had been injured.
An officer’s calls to loved ones in the moments after the shooting were also captured.
“Get the f**k out of there, I’m ok. Get out of there,” the officer is heard saying to a woman. “Get everybody together and get in the house.”
The woman explains that she does not know where three males are, who the officer later identifies as his children.
“My kids were in there, they got separated and I’m trying to get them home,” he tells another officer.
Te newly released footage fills in some of the gaps of what was happening around the site as news spread of the apparent assassination attempt, but also adds to the pressure on the Secret Service over communication gaps that day.
A Secret Service spokesperson told Newsweek Friday morning that the footage was under review.
“The U.S. Secret Service appreciates our local law enforcement partners, who acted courageously as they worked to locate the shooter that day,” the spokesperson said.
“The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a U.S. Secret Service failure, and we are reviewing and updating our protective policies and procedures in order to ensure a tragedy like this never occurs again.”
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