A viral video that one of the attendees of former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, filmed shows an individual running across a roof — the same roof Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump from — minutes before the tragedy, which claimed the life of one attendee and injured three others, including Trump.
Fox News first obtained the video — which James Copenhaver, one of the victims injured at the July 13 rally, filmed. In the video, an individual can be seen scurrying across the roof where Crooks later took the shots. According to Fox News, the video was taken at 6:08 p.m. If that is accurate, this occurred about three minutes before Crooks opened fire on Trump.
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Copenhaver was critically wounded after being shot twice and is currently in a rehabilitation center, according to attorney Joseph Feldman at the Law Offices of Max C. Feldman. The lawyer told the outlet that Copenhaver “had almost seen or heard something whiz past him, which we’re assuming was a bullet.”
“He felt it on his arm, and he looked down at his arm…and felt pain initially, but he hadn’t even realized he had been shot a second time at that point. It could have been shock,” he added.
This unearthed video comes as the U.S. Secret Service continues to face congressional grillings after being unable to provide adequate answers to obvious questions about how Crooks was able to get a clear line of sight to the former president that day.
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Adding to the unanswered questions is the fact that Crooks was somehow able to fly a drone in the area about two hours before the rally without raising any red flags. It also raises questions about how Secret Service counter-snipers were, supposedly, unable to see Crooks on the other roof.
On Tuesday, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe testified to the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the Secret Service was not aware of Crooks until it heard gunshots.
“Based on what I know right now, neither the Secret Service counter-sniper teams nor members of the former president’s security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” Rowe told lawmakers.
“It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots,” he continued, adding that a Secret Service counter-sniper “neutralized the assailant within seconds after the assailant fired his weapon. That counter-sniper had full discretion to use deadly force to stop an attacker and did not need to seek authorization to fire.”
Rowe’s assertion follows the excuse former U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle initially offered for the roof not being covered, citing the “safety factor” of putting someone on a “sloped roof.”
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During Tuesday’s testimony, Rowe also refused to say who it was, exactly, who had denied requests for more security from Trump’s security detail over the last two years.