Newly released footage taken by one of the victims at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shows a figure walking across a nearby roof roughly three minutes before shots were fired.
James Copenhaver, a victim shot twice during the July 13 assassination attempt, captured footage of a person visibly moving across the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building at 6:08 p.m., just about three minutes before would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on the crowd, according to footage first obtained by Fox News on Wednesday. Officials believe Crooks, 20, fired eight shots into the crowd from the AGR roof at 6:11 p.m. with an AR-15 style rifle from a roof located 130 feet away from the rally.
The shooting injured Trump in the upper portion of his right ear and killed 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, while he shielded his two daughters from the shooting. The incident also critically injured Copenhaver and 57-year-old David Dutch.
I just checked this against the original speech footage.
This clip begins 2 minutes and 57 seconds before Crooks started shooting.
That’s about 3 whole minutes of him very obviously walking on top of that building. https://t.co/VPwpO8ufha
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) July 31, 2024
Counter snipers fatally shot Crooks shortly after he fired shots into the crowd.
Daily Caller Editorial Director Vince Coglianese found this footage began 2 minutes and 57 seconds before Crooks started firing, meaning the individual seen had been openly on the roof for roughly three minutes.
Copenhaver was discharged from Allegheny General Hospital on July 26 and continues to recover at a rehabilitation center, Joseph Feldman, a spokesperson for Copenhaver, told Fox News.
Members of the Secret Service and FBI told lawmakers on July 17 that law enforcement officials noticed Crooks approximately 50 minutes before Trump took the stage. Secret Service members reportedly witnessed Crooks on the roof about 20 minutes before he opened fire into the crowd, according to ABC News.
Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley obtained text messages on Monday suggesting that law enforcement flagged Crooks to their colleagues as a suspicious presence nearly 90 minutes before the shooting, according to The New York Times. Officers spotted Crooks as he was using a rangefinder, but lost site of him in the crowd.
Whistleblowers reportedly told Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that Secret Service agents were initially assigned to be present on the roof, but left the area due to the hot temperature. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle claimed no agents were stationed on the roof because of the unsafe “sloped roof.”
Cheatle resigned from the agency following a tense hearing before the House Oversight Committee on July 23. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin issued a joint statement on July 22 calling for her resignation, stating she “failed to provide answers” about the “stunning operational failure” that occurred during the rally.
Crooks reportedly flew a drone over the rally site more than once in order to research the area hours before the event, The Wall Street Journal first reported. A whistleblower alleged to Hawley’s office that the Secret Service repeatedly denied local law enforcement’s offer to use drones that had the capability to “neutralize” and monitor potential threats, which Acting Director Ronald Rowe confirmed to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing on Tuesday.
Secret Service officials also reportedly denied the Trump’s campaign’s repeated requests for additional security and resources before the rally, The Washington Post reported. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called the accusations “unequivocally false” during a July 15 interview on CNN.
The FBI and Secret Service did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)
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