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BUTLER, Pa. – Butler County Executive Thomas Knights defended local police response to the assassination attempt on former President Trump at a rally Saturday.
Knights' comments come amid a controversy between the United States Secret Service (USSS) and the Fraternal Order of Police. Federal and local law enforcement have come under public criticism for failing to stop an assassination attempt on President Trump before he opened fire, but Knights said those tensions have not “spilled over” to Butler.
“I think there's been a misunderstanding of the overall response. I can only speak to the fact that police officers who were primarily tasked with assisting with traffic control have been shifted to responding to suspicious persons,” the mayor, who oversees all of Butler County's department chiefs, including the police chief, said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
“I believe our police officers did what they were taught in their training. … How the events unfolded after that is another objective of mine, which is to have a really thorough report on this incident and let everybody know.”
Knights added that to his knowledge, the USSS has not been in “direct contact” with Butler officials.
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Republican presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump is assisted by US Secret Service agents after shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, US, July 13, 2024. (REUTERS/Brendan McDiarmid)
“Interviews are ongoing with all officers involved in the incident, regardless of role, so we're just waiting for that information to be compiled into one public report,” he explained.
In the assassination attempt, former volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was shot and killed while trying to shield his wife and daughters from gunfire. Two others, David Duch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania, were seriously injured. The shooting raises questions about how suspect Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, managed to access the roof of a nearby building with President Trump in his sights.
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Corey Comperatore (center), a volunteer firefighter who was shot and killed at a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump, is seen in an undated photo from Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department 27. (Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department/Distributed via REUTERS)
The FBI has been interviewing local law enforcement officials since Saturday's shooting, a process Knights said is “fact-finding” and will continue through the rest of this week and possibly beyond.
Knights also provided further details about the moment officers realized there was a suspicious person on the roof and how they responded before gunshots rang out at about 6:11 p.m.
“When it was discovered that a suspicious person was near the building, police, whose primary role is traffic control and guidance, moved towards the building due to its proximity.”
Thomas Knights
Knights said all police officers at the rally had received reports of “a suspicious person somewhere on the ground.”
The Butler Farm Show, the site of a campaign rally for former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is pictured Monday, July 15, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt while speaking at a rally on July 13. (Photo by Associated Press/Jean J. Puskar)
Buildings are seen adjacent to the Butler Farm Show, the site of a campaign rally for former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, Monday, July 15, 2024. Thomas Crooks fired shots from the roof of the complex during an assassination attempt on July 13, wounding Trump. (AP Photo/Jean J. Puskar)
Rally attendees then began pointing at a suspicious armed figure on the roof of a “light industrial office building” that Knights described as “unoccupied” at the time of the rally.
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He said he was not aware of any police officers or agencies specifically tasked with monitoring the building, which was not technically within the assembly area but was next to it. The building is owned by AGR International, a manufacturing company.
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“When the police got there in the immediate vicinity of the building after the suspicious person call, they searched the area, but they couldn't see anyone on the roof of the building from their vantage point,” Knights explained. “So one of the other officers literally… [other officers] I was high enough in the air to grab the edge of the roof.”
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Gunfire erupts and a police sniper returns fire as Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jean J. Puskar)
With no other access to the roof at the time, the officer managed to pull himself up until his “head was above the roof,” Knights said. The distance from the ground to the edge of the roof where the officer grabbed was about 12 feet.
“Officers did observe an individual on the roof,” Knights said. “The individual was confirmed to have a weapon” and “pointed the weapon at officers.”
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An undated photograph of Thomas Matthew Crookes. (Courtesy of AFP)
The officer assumed a defensive position from where he was hanging from the edge of the roof and lowered his head, but his grip weakened, at which point he fell “approximately eight feet” to the ground and sprained his ankle, the town manager explained.
“Both the officer who lifted and the officer who put the person face down reported the incident. [and] The individual on the roof was determined to be armed.”
Thomas Knights
Knights said the gap in time and uncertainty between Saturday's incident and the release of the official report detailing the assassination attempt would, and has, led to “angry emails and phone calls.”
Blood spills in the auditorium after a gun was fired at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show Co. in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. A suspect who wounded Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally has died, along with a bystander, US media reported Saturday. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
“We expect the report to be provided as timely as possible and in a manner that allows the public to have a clear understanding of the timeline and how the various elements occurred,” he said.
“The overall operational plan that the Butler County Police Department has developed for its traffic control role is [was] “It was well laid out, well planned, and had good internal communication with the other agencies that were tasked with the overall event. I thought their response to going from traffic control and patrol to responding to a possible active shooter situation spoke volumes about the training that went into it.”
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Police officers work during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Knights said he believes local police officers were able to identify the shooter and “de-escalate the whole situation as much as possible.”
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“The harsh criticism from both sides has been pretty brutal and relentless,” he said. “It's been going on for about two days. Again, I hope that when the investigation is fully concluded and the full details of what happened are made clear, those who are quick to send hate mail will be just as quick to send emails of apology.”