New body camera video released Thursday by Butler Township from the day a man attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump shows the moment police encountered the shooter before he opened fire on the Pennsylvania crowd and includes a police officer saying he warned the Secret Service about the building vulnerability.
In one of the videos, a Butler Township officer is being hoisted onto the roof of a building near the July 13 rally, minutes before Trump was set to speak.
The officer appears to peek his head over the roof before quickly dropping to the ground and running to a nearby police vehicle, the video shows. The shooter cannot be seen in this angle of bodycam video, and there is no audio.
NBC News has previously reported that in that moment, the officer came face to face with the shooter, Thomas Crooks, who pointed his weapon at the officer, prompting the officer to hit the ground, according to Butler Township Manager Tom Knights.
Later in the video, the officer appears to confirm the encounter, saying, “f—— this close, dude, he turned right around on me.”
Officials later determined that the shooter was on top of a building in a complex next to the Butler Farm Show — where Trump was giving his speech — which was roughly 148 yards from Trump and outside the safety perimeter set by the Secret Service that day.
Crooks fired eight shots, nicking Trump in the ear, killing one rallygoer and critically injuring two others. Crooks was shot and killed by counter-snipers within seconds.
A later portion of the same video clip shows the Butler Township officer jumping back onto the rooftop. In that video, Crooks’ bloodied body can be seen, handcuffed, after Secret Service snipers shot and killed him.
“Before you motherf—— came out here I put my head up here like a f——- idiot by myself dude…” the officer said on radio traffic captured in the clip. “I was calling out, ‘bro, on top of the roof, bro,’ were you on the same frequency?”
An unknown member of the SWAT team then said he was “pissed” that he “couldn’t … find him,” apparently referring to Crooks.
In another clip released Thursday, an unidentified Butler Township officer said about 10 minutes after Trump was shot that he told the Secret Service about the building’s vulnerability days before the rally.
The officer is heard saying that he “told them they needed to post the guys over here. I told them that.”
When asked “who” he told, the officer replied: “the Secret Service.”
The officer said he told Secret Service members July 9 — four days before the July 13 event — to “post guys over here,” referring to the building where the shooter was found.
“How the hell could you lose a guy walking over here?” the officer said.
Asked whether the officer’s team was on the roof, the officer answered no and said the team was inside. Some back and forth can be heard in the audio about where people were stationed.
The officer added that the Secret Service assured officials earlier in the week that “we’re going to post guys over here.” He does not specify the location in the video.
Anthony Guglielmi, U.S. Secret Service spokesperson, said in a statement that the agency is reviewing the video.
“The U.S. Secret Service appreciates our local law enforcement partners, who acted courageously as they worked to locate the shooter that day,” Guglielmi said. “The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a U.S. Secret Service failure, and we are reviewing and updating our protective policies and procedures in order to ensure a tragedy like this never occurs again.”
Pennsylvania State Police has said it identified Crooks as “suspicious” before the attack.
The Secret Service has been criticized for its handling of the incident and any warnings before Trump took the stage, for how long it took to get the former president off the stage, and for its preparedness before the rally.
Amid the fallout, the head of the agency, Kimberly Cheatle, stepped down from her post. Days later, the acting head of the Secret Service said in a Senate committee hearing that Secret Service agents could be fired if it is found they broke protocol that day.
Gabe Gutierrez contributed.