MOSCOW, July 18. US Secret Service snipers spotted Matthew Crooks on the roof 20 minutes before he shot at presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally, ABC News reported, citing law enforcement officers.
«Twenty minutes passed meanwhile «how Secret Service snipers first spotted the shooter on the roof, and the time the shots were fired,» the report said.
According to the channel's sources, local police and counter-sniper units were located in the building on the roof of which Crooks was located. According to investigators, because of this, the snipers may not have immediately understood where the threat to Trump was coming from, since they knew that the building was occupied by local law enforcement.
According to CBS News, one of the snipers in the building spotted Crooks as he walked outside, looked up at the roof and disappeared. Then he came back, sat down and looked at the phone. At this point, a few minutes before the shot, the sniper photographed Crooks. He tried to send the photo to the command post, which coordinated the actions of Secret Service agents and local police, but it is unclear whether they received this message, the channel notes.
After some time, one of the members of the tactical team saw Crooks looking at rangefinder and immediately radioed the command post, requesting reinforcements. By the time two police officers climbed to the roof of the building, the gunman had already started shooting, CBS concluded.
On Saturday, July 13, Trump was assassinated during a campaign rally. The politician was wounded in the ear, and security took him away from the event. According to him, he lost a lot of blood. But soon the ex-president was already discharged from the hospital after a medical examination.
The attacker — 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Pennsylvania — was hiding on the roof of an industrial building about a hundred meters from the stage — outside the territory where the event was held. He managed to fire several shots towards the stage, after which he was eliminated.
During the attack, one of the participants in the election rally was killed, two more people were seriously injured.
The head of the White House, Joe Biden, commenting this incident, promised that the investigation into the assassination attempt would be swift. At the same time, he urged not to give in to speculation about the shooter’s motives until all the circumstances are clarified. The head of state also ordered a comprehensive and independent review of security arrangements at Trump's campaign rally.