According to NBC News, two sources familiar with the Secret Service’s operations told the outlet that the rooftop was identified as a potential security vulnerability in the days before the assassination attempt. Located roughly 148 yards from the area where Trump was shot, the building where Thomas Matthew Crooks allegedly fired at the former president is owned by American Glass Research. But The New York Times reported the Secret Service left the structure outside its security plans, leaving it in the hands of local law enforcement officials, who for whatever reason did not station anyone on the roof. “Someone should have been on the roof or securing the building so no one could get on the roof,” one of the sources, a former senior Secret Service agent, told NBC News.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger said the security of the venue was in the hands of Secret Service agents. “They had meetings in the week prior,” he told NBC News, noting that they “designated who did what” and were the “top” in the command hierarchy. Jason Russell, who worked as a Secret Service agent from 2002 to 2010, told the BBC that the agency is limited in the number of agents they can post, and these workers typically determine positioning and share the plan with local law enforcement. On the Sunday following the attack, President Joe Biden said he directed the Secret Service to conduct an independent review of the security measures at the rally to determine what went wrong — and how Crooks was able to get as far as he did in his alleged plot.
