The man who shot Donald Trump on Saturday was in the ‘perfect location’ to kill the former president, a security expert revealed, highlighting how ‘massive’ the Secret Service’s failure is.
Twenty-year-old Thomas Crooks fired multiple rounds aimed at Trump’s head from a building nearly 165 yards from the stage the former president was speaking at during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
A bullet clipped the former president’s ear while two others were critically wounded and former firefighter, Corey Comperatore, tragically lost his life while heroically defending his family from the incoming fire.
Darin Gaub, a retired Army Lt. Col. and operator of a private security company, exclusively told DailyMail.com that he is astonished the Secret Service did not secure the building from which Crooks was perched.
He simply called it the best possible place to kill the former president from – something Secret Service should have known.
‘That other building that this sniper was on was a perfect location to have oversight of the entire crowd and be able to see what was going on from that angle,’ he said.
‘I would have absolutely selected that site to put somebody on there,’ he added.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has said the agency’s performance at the rally was ‘unacceptable.’
She also noted in an interview with ABC News Tuesday how the roof from which Crooks shot was unsafe for stationing agents due to its slight slope.
‘That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,’ she explained as the reason for not deploying a Secret Service team to the location.
Gaub was incredulous at Cheatle’s reasoning.
‘I think it’s garbage. It’s just an excuse. It’s not a valid reason,’ he said.
The Secret Service ‘already had snipers on a slope roof of the same design 150 yards away, making the whole thing a mockery.’
He accused Cheatle of lying – saying her rationale makes so sense.
‘Anybody who has any idea what they’re doing will look at that location and realize that that’s a perfect location to put somebody.’
A screen grab captured from a video shows the shooter was killed by the Secret Service, according to a source from the agency
Security personnel standing over the body of the shooter on a rooftop near the Trump rally. Cheatle said she did not deploy agents to this roof because of its slope and the safety concerns raised by such a surface
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts after gunfire rang out during a campaign rally
Shortly after the shooting, Cheatle sought to shift blame from the Secret Service onto others.
She had said local authorities were in charge of securing the building Crooks was on.
Later, she walked that back and said the Secret Service was ‘solely responsible’ for not preventing the attack.
Gaub noted how during his military service he was taught about ‘force protection’ – the elaborate measures that service members go through to protect bases in Iraq and Afghanistan from hostile forces.
‘Like this sniper used in Pennsylvania, those principles are all the same, and you can clearly look at this rally site and see what the most critical locations that someone needs to be on.’
A Secret Service counter sniper unit is seen on the roof behind Trump, it is believed this team returned fire on Crooks after his shots at Trump. The roof on which they were deployed clearly also has a slope shown in this image
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed off stage after getting shot
‘And that building that that sniper was on was one of the most critical locations there.’
A crucial part of security work entails thinking like your enemies and accounting for what their plans of attack may be.
In the case of the rally on Saturday, there were few buildings with such a clear line-of-sight to the president than the one selected by Crooks.
Secret Service’s inability to identify the roof from which Crooks shot as a major threat shows a strategic failure on the part of the agency, the veteran told DailyMail.com.
‘This is one of the most unforgiving jobs in the world, and when you make a mistake, a life is lost,’ he said.
‘And a mistake was made.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk