By Steve Neavling
The Secret Service has come under scrutiny after a gunman managed to access a roof between 150 and 250 years from the stage where former President Trump was speaking at a rally in Pennsylvania.
President Biden on Sunday said he’s launching “an independent review” of the security measures ahead of the assassination attempt.
“Those responsible for the planning, approving and executing of this clearly insufficient security plan need to testify before Congress and be held accountable,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Democrat and former Marine running for Senate in Arizona, said, according to Politico.
The shooting wounded Trump and killed an attendee.
Now authorities and lawmakers are pointing to a series of oversights and errors that failed to prevent a near assassination.
“There should never have been a clear line of sight on the former president. My Marine Corps training taught me that,” Gallego, an Iraq veteran, said in a statement.
Investigators are expected to interview Secret Service agents who were responsible for advance preparations and surveyed the area with local law enforcement. One of the lingering questions is whether rooftop access was discussed.
At such a close range, a gunman with a high-powered rifle wouldn’t have difficult access to a target, Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told CNN on Sunday.
“There was no one on that building. … This is a massive security breach, in my opinion,” said Mills, an Army veteran who worked for a State Department security contractor in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Questions have also been raised about how quick the Secret Service was to respond to the gunman.
“We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away,” rallygoer Greg Smith told the BBC at the scene. “He had a rifle, we could clearly see a rifle. … We’re pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground, we’re like ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle’… and the police did not know what was going on.”
