We’ve been reporting on the witnesses and videos of the shooter on the roof at the Trump rally.
A witness told the BBC that he saw him for multiple minutes — he estimated five minutes — on the roof as people were pointing him out and telling the police.
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But now there’s new video that corroborates what the witness said. It is also incredibly frustrating as people on the ground spot the guy, allegedly Thomas Crooks, crawling around on the roof with the rifle, and the people shout about it and point him out for almost a minute, but obviously, he is not stopped before the shooting.
If the people pointing him out saw the rifle, that has to be incredibly brave that they did that, since he could have turned the rifle on them.
This adds more context and confirms, in part, what the BBC witness said. People were pointing this guy out for some time before he did any shooting. It wasn’t just seconds. So there was a lot of time, potentially, to stop him or take him out, or at least get Trump off the stage. Why wasn’t he taken out, and how was this allowed to happen? You can see at least one officer walking by the building as people shout.
As we reported, there was also a concerning report that a local officer confronted the shooter, but when the shooter turned the rifle on him, the officer retreated down a ladder. There’s going to be an investigation of the shooting, but if that’s true, that’s pretty incredible as well. How could a law enforcement officer not act under those circumstances to take him out?
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It’s already looking like there were a lot of colossal failures here, and the Secret Service needs to answer up as to why all this went down as it did. When the people on the ground end up doing the job that you’re supposed to be doing, there’s a problem.
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