Secret Service Faces Questions About Leaving Building Out of Security Zone

The building from which a gunman fired at former President Trump on Saturday was — at least in hindsight — an obvious security risk. Its rooftop offered an ideal sniper’s perch, with a close, elevated and unobstructed view of Mr. Trump.

But when the Secret Service drew up plans for Saturday’s rally, it left that building outside its security perimeter. Instead, local law enforcement officials in Butler, Pa., were given responsibility for that building, and no police officers were stationed on the roof itself.

The building, used as a warehouse by equipment manufacturer AGR International, has become a focal point of myriad investigations into the shooting that nearly felled a former American president, one that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas on Monday called a security failure.

The first question is why the building, about 450 feet from the stage, was left out of the perimeter. A Secret Service advance team visited the site and made the determination, and a supervisor would have had to approve it. The agency so far has not said who that was.

That is just one of many unanswered questions. It is also unclear how the gunman got on the roof. People at the rally reported a suspicious person to local law enforcement. Quickly thereafter, rally visitors pointed out a man on the warehouse and the Secret Service shot and killed him after he began his assault.

The Secret Service has not said whether local law enforcement officers made service agents aware of a suspect or whether those officers were up to the task of dealing with the situation.

But the central question is whether the Secret Service failed at its most basic mission: keeping America’s leaders, including a former president, safe.

The security lapse is now the center of overlapping investigations, run by members of Congress and the Secret Service itself. On Monday, the leaders of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee announced their own investigation into Saturday night’s shooting. Senators Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, told the Secret Service in a letter that they wanted to know “how the suspect was able to get this close to a Secret Service protectee.”

“An incident like this cannot happen,” Mr. Mayorkas told CNN, adding, “When I say something like this cannot happen, we are speaking of a failure.”

Former federal law enforcement officials have said the Secret Service should have ensured the building was secured before the rally took place. The agency often relies on local law enforcement agencies for security at events.

One witness to Saturday’s shooting said that he had been allowed to walk into the same area as the warehouse without a security check.

Nathan Steadman said that he and his daughter stood under a nearby tree, where they had a clear view of Mr. Trump.

Within minutes of Mr. Trump taking the stage, Mr. Steadman said, he noticed people pointing at the building adjacent to the tree they were sitting under. He went to take a closer look, then saw the shooter crawl across on the roof and pull out the black barrel of a gun. Mr. Steadman turned toward his daughter, who was about 30 feet away, and screamed, “He’s got a gun!”

Mr. Steadman said the shooter then rolled over onto his back, turned the opposite direction, and fired twice in the direction away from where Mr. Trump was speaking. Mr. Steadman said he could not see who the gunman was shooting at in that direction. After those first shots, Mr. Steadman started to run, and then heard another volley of gunshots.

He said he was stunned that he had been allowed to get so close. “We never should have been allowed to go where we were,” Mr. Steadman said. “Why that building was not secured, it makes no sense.”

It is still not clear when and how the gunman got on the roof of the warehouse.

Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said on Sunday that local law enforcement had been notified of a suspicious person by rally visitors before the event started.

In an interview on Monday, he said that local police officers were in contact through radio with the agency before the shooting, including about the concerned warnings from the passers-by.

“There were radio communications between the Secret Service and local authorities acknowledging that the local police were dealing with an incident, an issue of a suspicious person,” he said.

Mr. Guglielmi declined to provide more details, citing the pending investigations.

At 6:03 p.m. local time, Mr. Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds, clapping and gesturing to the crowds as the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” played. By 6:09 p.m., videos analyzed by The New York Times show people in attendance were pointing at the roof of the warehouse. Two minutes later, the first shots rang out.

In aerial videos taken after the shooting, a ladder can be seen propped up against the building from which the shooter fired. An employee for AGR who works in the warehouse told The Times that employees there had never seen this ladder near the building before. It is unclear if this ladder was placed by the shooter, or law enforcement responders responding to the shooting.

Former Secret Service agents said that the agency begins planning for campaign events like this one days before, dispatching its advance team to survey the site and meet the local authorities.

In Butler, the Secret Service first reached out to the local authorities about the rally on July 5 — eight days beforehand — and held its first meeting with them on July 8, according to Steve Bicehouse, the county emergency services director.

Donald Mihalek, a former Secret Service agent who worked in the protective details for President George W. Bush and former President Barack Obama, said the service’s standard procedure is to finalize with the local authorities a security plan before the event, known as a “preliminary survey.”

The survey is then approved by a Secret Service supervisor. Leadership of other local law enforcement agencies also can weigh in, Mr. Mihalek said.

“Supervisors get briefed on the plan and check to see if there’s any gaps and try to fill those gaps. And once that’s done it’s game time,” Mr. Mihalek said.

Mr. Mihalek said the service tends to be stretched thin during campaigns, when they must protect both the sitting president and candidates simultaneously, he said.

For events like this one, the Secret Service divides the security zone into three sections: an inner perimeter staffed by the Secret Service, a middle perimeter that includes checkpoints staffed by both the Secret Service and local law enforcement and an outer perimeter typically policed by local law enforcement.

In towns that have previously hosted Trump rallies, police chiefs said that the Secret Service has the ultimate authority over where the security perimeters are set.

Michael Caron, chief of the Windham, N.H., police department, said his team had worked three presidential events, including a Trump rally in 2023 at the town’s high school. For that event, Mr. Caron said the Secret Services advance team contacted him about a week ahead to inform him of the location. During the team’s visit, the Secret Service discussed the site with local law enforcement officials, as well as contingency plans and what kind of assets and manpower the agency could provide.

“If we don’t have enough, we amend the plan and do what we can,” Mr. Caron said.

Vern Thomas, a captain at the Derry police department, worked with the Secret Service for a rally held in New Hampshire in 2023. Mr. Thomas said his department’s responsibility was not protection of the dignitary. Rather, officers focused their efforts on the surrounding areas, traffic and crowd control.

“We will walk through with the Secret Service, but it’s up to them to decide what is a threat and what’s not,” Mr. Thomas said.

Mr. Guglielmi said that in Butler, local law enforcement would have been responsible for sweeping the warehouse before the event started.

Former law enforcement officials with ties to the Secret Service have said the agency should have ensured that the building where the would-be assassin was positioned was covered by the federal agency’s security perimeter — in other words, by the protectors of the former president.

Jeffrey James, a 22-year veteran of the Secret Service, said that counter-sniper teams are trained to shoot from 1,000 yards away — and to scan areas out to that distance. He said close-up scans are typically done by those on foot.

The gunman in Butler County was only roughly 200 yards from Secret Service snipers. Mr. James said that might have been one reason that counter-sniper teams were slow to detect him.

“As a sniper, you’re not expecting anybody to be that close,” Mr. James said.

Hamed Aleaziz, Campbell Robertson, Aric Toler and Peter Baker contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.