Pennsylvania SWAT officer says his team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting

A police officer from a local tactical team assigned to former President Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, said there was no contact between their SWAT team and the U.S. Secret Service before Trump was shot.

“We were supposed to have a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members when they arrived,” Jason Woods, the Beaver County team’s lead sniper, told ABC News. “That never happened.”

Woods told the outlet that the lack of communication was likely part of the critical planning failure that ended with Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, wounding Trump, killing bystander Corey Compartore and injuring two others before being shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

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Donald Trump, his face covered in blood, is surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is carried away from the scene in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)

“I think that was probably a pivotal moment, where I started to think that things weren’t right because it had never happened,” he continued. “We had no communication.”

Following the assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned and a series of police and parliamentary inquiries were announced.

Woods told ABC News that he and his team were in position hours before Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show, but that his team’s first communication with the Secret Service didn’t happen “until after the shooting.” By then, he said, it was “too late.”

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Former President Trump reacts as multiple gunshots ring out during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

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One of the Beaver County snipers took photos of Crooks and called command to report his suspicious presence at the scene — but the 20-year-old gunman was still able to position himself on the roof of the building, ABC reported.

Meanwhile, members of Trump’s Secret Service and his top advisers are wondering why they were not informed that local police had spotted a suspicious person who turned out to be a potential assassin.

Trump advisers believed the sounds of gunfire, heard from a large white tent behind the stage, were fireworks, according to the Washington Post.

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A Beaver County Emergency Services officer shows a Secret Service member information on his cell phone after finding the body of Thomas Crooks. (Beaver County ESU obtained by Senator Grassley)

Two advisers, whose names were not released by the outlet, said they did not understand why the alert was not passed on so they could consider delaying Trump’s speech, a sentiment the Republican nominee echoed in an interview with Fox News.

“Nobody talked about it. Nobody said there was a problem,” the former president said in an interview Monday with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “They could have said, ‘Let’s wait 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ something. Nobody said … I think that was a mistake.”

Thomas Matthew Crooks is photographed in front of the Butler Fairgrounds the day after the attempted assassination of the former president on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Bethel Park School District/Getty Images)

Beaver County Detective Patrick Young, who leads the emergency services unit and SWAT team, said the group “did everything humanly possible that day.”

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“We often say in SWAT that we, as individuals, mean nothing until we come together as a team,” Young said.