A witness has described the unfathomable security lapse that led up to the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally Saturday evening, saying he repeatedly tried to alert cops to the existence of a rifle-wielding man on a rooftop just outside the event.
The witness, identified only as Greg, told the BBC that he was having a party outside the rally and was planning to walk up through a nearby field and listen to Trump when he started speaking. But as he was walking up, about five minutes into Trump’s speech, “We noticed a guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us.”
The man clearly had a rifle, Greg said, so he started trying to alert nearby cops and Secret Service agents who were stationed on the ground and on the roof of a barn.
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“We’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof… the police are down there running around on the ground. We’re like, ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle’… and the police were like, ‘Huh, right.’ They didn’t know what was going on.”
Greg said his group kept trying to flag down law enforcement with little success.
“Next thing you know, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage?’ I’m standing there pointing at [the gunman] for, you know, two or three minutes. The Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn. I’m pointing at the roof, just standing here like this… Next thing you know, five shots came out.”
Greg estimated the shooter was on the roof, in plain view, for at least three or four minutes before opening fire. He said it’s possible that the agents on top of the barn and on the ground couldn’t see the man because of the slope of the roof.
“Why aren’t there Secret Service on all the roofs?” he asked, seeming incredulous. “This is not a big place.”
After shots were fired, Secret Service agents “blew [the shooter’s] head off,” Greg said.
Footage circulating on social media from other witnesses corroborated Greg’s account, showing the suspected shooter lying motionless on the roof.
The Butler county district attorney confirmed to the Associated Press that one person attending the rally was killed, along with the shooter.
Trump appeared to be hit in the ear by an unknown object as he was speaking and was whisked away by Secret Service agents with blood dipping from his right ear. He was taken to a medical facility to be checked but was “fine,” his spokesperson said.
