Coordination, Communication and Planning Failures Unraveling the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump

By Patrick J. Brosnan

While any act of political violence is shocking, the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump on July 13, 2024, captured on video and re-broadcast numerous times to a worldwide audience, is arguably the most jarring to the national public psyche since video was broadcast of President Ronald Reagan being shot in 1981.

Former President Trump was spared not by the vast law-enforcement contingent protecting him, but by chance, by sheer luck- a single almost simultaneous round from a local officer likely disabling the assassin’s rifle; and a shift in Trump’s stance toward the Jumbotron screen, allowing the deadly rounds to whiz by his head, and suffering only a minor wound to his right ear. Sadly, others in the crowd were not as fortunate.

It seems almost inconceivable to many that an otherwise unremarkable, but obviously troubled, misguided, and attention-seeking 20 year old loner, barely out of his teens, and bereft of any specialized training, equipment, or support, could penetrate to an elevated shooting position within 150 yards of the presumptive Republican candidate and former President of the United States. How could he have defeated the combined intelligence, expertise, planning, and coordination of local, state and federal law enforcement? How was he able to climb onto the roof of a building within sight line of the main stage, with a military grade rifle, dozens of rounds of ammunition, a laser rangefinder, and a remote detonator to trigger an improvised explosive device in his car? How was he not seen climbing Building 6, a mere football field and a half from the former President?

So many questions, so few answers, and the few that do trickle in paint an even more troubling, more staggering, series of security failures. As a former NYPD Detective, who now runs his own national security firm, these are questions I've attempted to answer, not just to better protect my clients, but also to possibly inform government decision makers for best practices going forward to mitigate a similar breakdown in protection for someone running for the highest office of the land. . Based on public testimony, sworn statements and time/date-stamped text messages, I have learned that there were many rudimentary and significant gaps in coordination, communication, and planning by the Secret Service and the local police. Failures that must be rectified before it is too late, again. I have identified, assessed and correlated these failures:

The Seven Deadly Sins

● No drones

● No snipers on the roof of Building 6

● No direct communications

● No unified command post

● No radios

● No briefings

● No written plan

A Few Facts

Attendees entering the secured inner perimeter at Presidential Campaign rallies are screened for prohibited items, including weapons. For those candidates who have USSS protection, including former Presidents, the Secret Service routinely screens nearby buildings and businesses. The event had security stationed in an outer perimeter, which did not require access screening but was patrolled by state and local police, and an inner perimeter which did require access screening, staffed by U.S. Secret Service agents. Also, four separate counter-sniper teams were assigned to the event, two from the Secret Service and two from local law enforcement. One of these teams, comprising three snipers (local SWAT officer Greg Nicols, SWAT team member from Beaver County Jason Woods, and a third shooter from Butler County’s SWAT team), were assigned to be inside the AGR Building 6. No Officers were assigned to the roof.

The Pennsylvania State police were also involved in the security planning, and the remainder of Butler Township police were assigned traffic duties. The Secret Service had recently increased Trump's security detail due to intelligence they had received from the FBI regarding an ongoing investigation which established that a Pakistani man with connections to Iran, Asif Merchant, tried to recruit people to kill former President Trump. Merchant was arrested on July 12, just as he was attempting to flee the United States. On July 16, the FBI revealed investigative details about this plot to assassinate former President Trump to the general public.

What remains are looming questions. How could the events of July 13th happen? Could the shooting have been prevented? Was it a failure of coordination, communication and planning -or all of the above?

Coordination, Communication and Planning Failures

No Drones

July 7: Cell phone locational data confirms that Thomas Crooks visited the venue six days prior to the event. A recovered drone from his car also confirms that he had programmed a flight path over the Butler Country Farm Show grounds. Thomas Crooks surveyed the site with his drone July 7th, and July 13th. His research likely confirmed Building 6 as an optimal shooting perch and provided intelligence on deployed protection assets. The USSS, according to testimony, declined the Pennsylvania State Police offer to deploy drones.

Deliberate Exclusion of AGR Building 6

July 8: Secret Service agents conducted their site assessment of Butler County Farm Show grounds and were joined by law enforcement officials from several local and state agencies. The Secret Service decided to EXCLUDE the entire warehouse complex owned by AGR, including Building No. 6 from its inner security perimeter. (a textbook assassin’s perch- elevated, a direct line of sight, and only 157 yards from the former President). This meant that on the day of the rally, Mr. Crooks was able to drive right up to Building 6 without him or his car being stopped and screened. Crooks and his 32-inch DPMS- Brand AR rifle, 100 rounds of 5.56 ammunition, a laser rangefinder, body armor, and a remote detonator along with two IEDs in his car had a free pass allowing him into an area of the Butler Farm County Fairgrounds which were in extremely close proximity to Trump. Now, while counter snipers were assigned to surveil the rally, Mr. Crooks, effectively invisible, was also in a position to watch them.

No Radios

July 12: It may come as a surprise in this day and age, but Federal, State, and Local law enforcement often do not have the capability to communicate with one another via radio. Different departments and agencies are equipped with radios which operate only on their own unique wavelength and/or frequency. This means that a Police Officer who identifies a threat often cannot speak directly to another officer who may be able to react and neutralize the threat. Instead, he must relay information through a joint command center. In an effort get all of the counter-sniper teams from USSS, PSP, and Butler County on the same radio frequency during the event, the Butler County ESU Commander arranged to provide the Secret Service counter-sniper teams with local PD radios at the ESU Command Post RV on July 12th at 1100 hrs. It didn't happen.

No Unified Command Post

July 13: The Secret Service normally establishes a unified command post at the venue site or in close proximity to it. Typically, they request leadership from every involved agency to be present in this command center so that information can be rapidly disseminated to all officers and agents on the ground. At Butler, testimony established that two command centers were operational. One for State Police and the Secret Service, and for local police. The local Police communicated to the State Police, which passed on information to the Secret Service. This bifurcated strategy virtually ensured a breakdown in information exchange.

No Direct Communications

July 13: Communications between the Secret Service and the local police were disjointed and time-consuming, helping to explain why Secret Service agents closest to Trump allowed him to walk out on stage as they were unaware there was a potential unresolved threat in the area, and were taken by surprise when gunfire erupted. As publicly stated by Beaver Creek Swat team members during an interview on ABC news on July 24- “on at least three occasions, a local officer inside the Butler County command post had to relay information about Crooks to the State Police, who then informed the Secret Service hub by cellphone.”

No Briefings

July 13: While testimony indicates that some leadership planning meetings did occur prior to July 13th, they have been described as informal and disorganized. Officers from several local law enforcement agencies were scheduled for a briefing at 9 a.m. The after-action report indicates the Secret Service was not in attendance.

No Written Plan

A security briefing scheduled by local law-enforcement, and the Pennsylvania state police for the morning of the shooting for 9am the morning of the shooting was unattended by the Secret Service and local officers did not receive a written plan until 1:30 PM, 30 minutes after the doors opened.

A Strange Kid Flying a Drone, Carrying a Backpack and a Spotting Scope

July 13:

3:00PM: According to officers assigned to the entry point, Crooks raised police suspicions when he tried to gain entry into the secured inner perimeter and pass through the magnetometer with a spotting scope (a monocular device used to gauge distance for long distance shooting). Since possession of the spotting scope was unusual but not illegal, Crooks was allowed entrance but returned to his car outside the perimeter, shortly after.

3:40PM: Crooks re-entered the unsecured outer perimeter site with over 100 rounds of ammunition, body armor, explosive devices and an AR rifle in his car. Since he was not entering the secured inner perimeter (which he had already reconned earlier) he avoided the magnetometers.

3:55PM: Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards away from the fairgrounds for 11 minutes, which would have basically given him a rearview mirror view of where he would eventually set up and his sight line to the stage area.

4:26PM: A Beaver County Emergency Services Unit sniper ended his shift and spotted Crooks lurking around Building 6, the southernmost AGR International warehouse, where police counter snipers were positioned inside but not on the roof. The sniper texted his colleagues: “Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know.”

5:14PM: One of the counter snipers still in building 6 saw Crooks directly underneath the warehouse and photographed him after seeing him "scoping out" the rooftop of building 6 using a spotting scope. The counter sniper then text-messaged pictures of Crooks to other members of law enforcement before heading outside to find Crooks and keep visual contact while backup arrived. Crooks ran from his position. Four Butler Township police officers who had been directing traffic also joined the manhunt. They lost him.

5:38PM: The photos were shared in a group chat, and another text went out among the officers, saying they should inform the Secret Service. According to the Washington Post, “Kid lurking around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards the stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”

5:42PM: “Just an FYI, we had a younger white male, long hair, lurking around the AGR building,” a local counter sniper said at 5:42 p.m., according to a time-stamped transcript of encrypted radio communications obtained by The Washington Post. “He was viewed with a range finder sighting the stage. … We lost sight of him.”

5:46PM: According to testimony from the FBI and the Secret Service at a congressional hearing on July 17, Crooks was again seen using the spotting scope. The Secret Service command post is again notified of a suspicious person. The Secret Service stated in an unclassified public briefing on Wednesday July 17-“Crooks was a person of interest 62 minutes before the shooting.”

6:00PM: One officer in the group texts guessed that Crooks was moving toward the back of the complex of AGR buildings, “away from the event.” Instead, unknown to the officers, Crooks climbed onto an air conditioning unit and was now on the roof of Building 6. Crooks’ position - his assassin’s perch- provided him excellent concealment from the northern counter sniper team due to the foliage/branches of two large trees. Crooks’ firing position did not offer excellent concealment from the southern counter sniper team; however, his position did minimize the threat of counter-fire from the ground as he was several feet back from the actual peak of the building 6 roof. Crooks’ precise positioning was likely informed by his prior drone research, and spotting scope analysis of the rooftop.

Critical Failure:

6:02PM-6:08PM: Law enforcement lost sight of Crooks for six of the final minutes of his life.

Analysis of the 10 Rounds Fired:

6:11PM: Three shots ring out and former President Trump grabs his now bloody ear and crouches behind the lectern. Five more rounds are fired and a 50-year-old former fire chief, Corey Comperatore, is hit by one or more of the gunman's bullets. Two other rally-goers, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, are seriously wounded.

6:12PM: The 9th shot fired was from a Butler SWAT officer, Greg Nicols, from the ground about 100 yards away from AGR building 6. Nichols’ single shot immediately followed Crooks’ eight rounds (a volley of 5, then 3) and struck the shooter’s rifle, causing Crooks to adjust his position in his assassin’s perch. According to Congressman Clay Higgins’ investigative report to Congress, “shot 9 hit Crooks' rifle stock and injured his face, neck, and right shoulder area from the stock breaking up.” The shot from the local officer apparently caused the would-be assassin to temporarily recoil from his perch on the rooftop, based on videotape obtained by Congressman Higgins. Crooks’ retreat coincided with a 10 second pause in his shooting according to audio experts who examined the gunshots.

The 10th and final shot were fired from the southern counter sniper team and struck Crooks in the left mouth area and exited the right ear, killing him instantly.

According to Congressman Higgins’ investigative report he concludes the 9th shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks' AR rifle, “I'm 99% sure, based upon reliable eyewitness ESU tactical officers who observed Crooks' rifle before the FBI harvested it as evidence.” If Crooks’ AR buffer tube was damaged, according to ballistic experts with direct knowledge of this case, his rifle wouldn't fire after his 8th shot; and in fact, without the buffer system, the rifle would cease to function as a semi automatic. This is a plausible explanation for the 10 second pause in shooting- his rifle was likely disabled. Unfortunately, there is no plausible explanation for the U.S. Secret Service’s catastrophic planning, communication and coordination failures.

Building 6- What Happened?

The shooting was a devastating failure of one of the agency’s core duties and led to the resignation of the Secret Service’s then-director, Kim Cheatle. At a congressional hearing after the assassination attempt, Cheatle acknowledged that the U.S. Secret Service was told about a suspicious person two to five times before the shooting. She also revealed that the roof from which Crooks fired had been identified as a “potential vulnerability” days before the event.

The Secret Service’s decision not to include Building 6 in the protected outer perimeter was a staggering oversight. This central, and irrefutable, fact was the first crack in the U.S. Secret Service’s enormously- flawed security plan. This ill-fated decision effectively provided Crooks unfettered access to an elevated firing platform with direct line of sight to the stage, and the 20-year-old nursing home aide seized the opportunity. Informed by his own reconnaissance, he swiftly drove his car around the magnetometers, outside the protected area, and, incredibly, parked his vehicle, loaded with a rifle, ammo, explosive devices, and body armor, next to the vehicles of the counter snipers concealed in Building 6. He was, effectively, invisible.

Advance Planning: Puzzling and Flawed

The Secret Service’s advance planning for public events is an intricate, multi-layered process. An advance team arrives days earlier to scope out the scene and identify potential areas of concern. They order vehicles moved. They set up barriers. They block off roads. Advance teams typically comprise several specialized and senior agents strategizing, assessing and approving a detailed protection plan according to five former agents and one current agent who have been directly involved in such planning. Despite the Secret Service’s assessment of Building 6 as “a point of interest” and “a vulnerability” according to Thomas Knights, Butler Township’s Manager, it was, inexplicably, excluded from the inner perimeter.

What Next?

Now come the questions, and there are plenty. Multiple investigations have been launched, both into the crime itself and how law enforcement allowed it to happen. It is becoming increasingly clear this was a complicated failure involving multiple missteps and at least nine local and federal law enforcement divisions that were supposed to be working together.

On August 22, 2024, thirty-nine days after the shooting, five U.S. Secret Service agents were placed on modified duty, including the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office and three other agents assigned to that office, which had direct responsibility for the security plan. “The U.S. Secret Service is committed to investigating the decisions and actions of personnel related to the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump," said agency spokesman Charles Guglielmi. “We are examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure.

On August 26, 2024, according to a member of a congressional task force investigating the assassination attempt, Thomas Crooks used encrypted messaging accounts on various platforms located in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany. “Why does a 19-year kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?” Congressman Michael Waltz said at a press conference last week.”How did he learn to build these IEDs? How did he learn to install remote detonators?

How did he conduct those searches and not get popped?” he told The Post the following day. “I still have a lot

of questions.”

On September 4, Missouri, Senator Josh Hawley dropped a new Bombshell on Fox News citing information that had been passed to him by whistleblowers that “most of the agents who were there at the rally in Butler were, in fact, not Secret Service agents, but Homeland security agents who had only received a two hour online webinar, which the sound didn’t work for half the time.”

To boot, according to Hawley, “The Homeland security agents were supposedly pulled off child exploitation cases and other investigations in order to serve on Trump’s protective detail “– 60 minute webinar training of sex trafficking investigators to protect the former president? The mind reels from it.

In the weeks since the shooting, the Secret Service has increased coverage for former President Trump and dispatched some members of President Joe Biden’s protective detail to assist with advance planning for campaign rallies and other events, officials said on August 16th. They have also seriously tightened perimeter access to Mar a Lago and other venues with manpower and technology.

The Secret Service will also use ballistic glass to protect former President Donald Trump so he can resume outdoor campaign events, according to two sources familiar with the planning.

These mitigative steps will likely decrease the probability of a copycat, or similar incident, but what took so long? Why did it take the murder of a decorated firefighter, and the critical wounding of two civilians, and a bullet through a former United States President’s ear, before these increased security steps were undertaken?

Patrick J. Brosnan is the Founder and CEO of Brosnan Risk Consultants, a national security and intelligence firm headquartered in New York City. Over the past 35 years, Mr. Brosnan has provided high-level executive protection for senior government officials, the Mayor of New York City, the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia and numerous ultra-high net worth individuals.