U.S. Secret Service Acknowledges Communications and Preparedness Gaps in 13 July Political Rally Security
“July 13, 2024, was a failure for the Secret Service.” It’s a stark conclusion to the U.S. Secret Service’s Mission Assurance Inquiry report about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The report—the culmination of months of evaluation and assessment by the Secret Service—identified several key areas of deficiency and failure, as well as a list of improvements that have been implemented.
Communications
For political events and rallies, the Secret Service coordinates with local law enforcement entities to share information, boost personnel numbers, and assess potential threats. However, those goals all require effective communication to be successful.
Multiple breakdowns in communications “contributed significantly to the mission failure,” the report said.
The Secret Service designated a security room at the Butler Farm Show site and planned for it to be staffed by representatives from the multiple public safety agencies (police, fire, medical) helping to staff the event, per existing protocols. The representatives would be responsible for monitoring their agency’s radio transmissions and convey any vital information to the Secret Service supervisor staffing the room. However, Secret Service personnel failed to ensure the room was staffed as planned, and only one partner agency—the Pennsylvania State Police—provided a counterpart assigned to the room. Local law enforcement teams instead staffed a separate, local emergency services command post.
Information about the suspect—Thomas Crooks—was shared with a limited number of law enforcement personnel directly via text or cell phone communications rather than being broadcast widely over radio. And the Secret Service counter-sniper team did not collect a radio offered by local law enforcement sniper counterparts. This inhibited direct radio communication between the two teams.
Nearly one week after a gunman opened fire on former U.S. President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, U.S. Secret Service officials are facing intense scrutiny for potential missteps that allowed the incident to occur in the first place. https://t.co/pR6mFNeyIY
— Security Management (@SecMgmtMag) July 19, 2024
Line of Sight
Secret Service personnel expected that some large pieces of farm equipment would be in place at the rally to obstruct direct views between Trump’s podium, and areas where an attack could be launched.
“Site advance personnel failed to recognize gaps in the site’s construction and failed to notify their chain of command that potential line-of-sight concerns were not fully mitigated,” the report said.
Command and Control
In addition to communication breakdowns, a lack of coordination “led to the failure to secure the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building where Crooks initiated his attack,” the report said.
The Secret Service did not command the appropriate dispatch of agency or local personnel to the AGR building area after learning about a suspicious individual with a range finder.
In addition, “two state and local agencies supporting the Butler rally with prior experience working with the Secret Service observed that agency planning for the Butler rally lacked detail, cohesion, and clear understanding of who was in charge, all of which contributed to the overall lack of coordination,” according to the report.
Conclusions and Next Steps
The Mission Assurance Inquiry identified several instances of behaviors and acts by employees that “warrant review for corrective counseling and, potentially, disciplinary action.”
In the wake of the shooting, the Secret Service also implemented multiple changes, including increasing staffing levels of special agents assigned to Trump’s protective detail, expanding the use of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) for observation at venues, addressing radio interoperability and redundant communication networks, expanding ballistic countermeasures at Secret Service protected campaign sites, and expanding the use of technical countermeasures at Trump’s residence.
The agency also “effected multiple organizational changes to better align enabling technologies with the appropriate operational level in the agency and to leverage research and development of emerging technologies to give the Secret Service a technical advantage over its adversaries,” the report noted.
Statement from @SecMayorkas on the Independent Review Panel Report of the July 13, 2024 Assassination Attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. ⤵️ https://t.co/Mbgwme64o8 pic.twitter.com/JZHgFXUval
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 17, 2024
Those changes might not be enough to satisfy other law enforcement and political agencies. An independent review by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released in October found that without reforms to the agency’s systemic issues, “another Butler can and will happen again.”
The reviewers outlined several remediations to the failures it identified, including a requirement that the Secret Service “follow a physically integrated communications setup at all large events going forward, with the integration of a real-time incident command management system,” “significant training regarding risk-based threat identification, ‘Speaking Up,’ and ownership values by senior-level personnel,” and “re-training on appropriate protectee extraction methods,” in addition to other mandates.
