- Donald Trump said a passerby was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania and died.
- Witnesses told the BBC they saw a man with a rifle crawling on a nearby roof.
- The U.S. Secret Service quickly came under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent the attack.
The U.S. Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny following the shooting and wounding of former President Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday night.
The shooting left one protester dead and two seriously injured and is being investigated as an attempted assassination.
The shooter died, according to the Secret Service.
When the shooting was still on the news, celebrities After the shooting, they quickly questioned the Secret Service and its leadership.
While the investigation is still in its early stages, law enforcement experts told Business Insider that the historic shooting will undoubtedly prompt a major overhaul of Secret Service procedures.
Matt Shoemaker, a former intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, went so far as to call the shooting a “major failure” by the Secret Service.
“I've been to these types of events before and there are layers of security,” Shoemaker said, “so it's incredible that the alleged shooter was on the roof, in easy reach of the podium, and went unnoticed.”
Trump said in a Truth Social post hours after the 6:15 pm shooting that a bullet had hit him above his right ear. Video of the shooting shows the former president holding his hands to his bloody face, then pumping his fist in triumph as he is escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents.
A Secret Service spokesperson referred Business Insider to official statements posted by the federal agency on social media and declined to answer specific questions about the incident.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi wrote in a post on X that the suspect “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside” at the venue of former President Trump's rally.
“The U.S. Secret Service immediately took protective measures and the former president is safe and undergoing screening,” Guglielmi said in a statement, noting the FBI had also been notified about the shooting.
In a separate statement, the FBI said it intended to lead the investigation. An FBI representative did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
At a press conference just after midnight, FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said it was “astonishing” that the gunman fired several shots before being subdued by Secret Service agents.
Representatives of the Secret Service did not attend the press conference and did not answer questions about the incident.
Shoemaker told BI that the gunman's presence appears to have been “overlooked,” despite first-hand reports from witnesses who said they saw a man with a rifle on a rooftop near the rally and attempted to call authorities.
“Maybe they weren't paying much attention. Maybe they were taking it seriously, but there just wasn't enough time before the shots rang,” Shoemaker said. “But the fact that the shots rang – the only thing saving the Secret Service right now is the fact that President Trump wasn't killed – means that they were relying purely on luck that the person they were supposed to be protecting wasn't killed. If they're relying on luck, that means there's a problem, that there's a failure somewhere.”
Shoemaker was not alone in assessing that the shooting would prompt a thorough review of Secret Service policies and procedures.
Ken Gray, a former FBI agent and lecturer at the University of New Haven's School of Criminal Justice, told Business Insider that given the fact that the shooter was rallying outside of a secured perimeter, future gatherings may need to “expand the secured perimeter or move indoors.”
But Gray said it was “too early to assess” whether the incident should be considered a complete security failure, especially given the proliferation of unconfirmed reports about the shooting online.
One of the most high-profile critics was Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who publicly endorsed Trump for the first time and criticized Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who served as security chief for soft-drinks company Pepsi before taking the reins.
“Prior to guarding the President, she was guarding bags of Cheetos…” Musk said in X's post, along with screenshots of her biography and work history.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have indicated the party's convention scheduled for this week in Milwaukee will go on as scheduled in the wake of the shooting at the rally, though it is unclear whether any changes will be made to security procedures for the event.
Investigations and more visible security measures
Shoemaker said he expects to see bulletproof glass surrounding former presidents' public appearances in the future, and that drones will be used more extensively for aerial surveillance of events.
“We expect that at least some initial findings will be released within the next 48 to 72 hours,” Shoemaker said. “If it takes longer than that, it's going to raise a lot of questions as to what went wrong. Is the issue that we don't have enough expertise to look into this issue?”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, in a post on X, vowed that the House would investigate the “tragic events” that took place at the rally.
“The American people have a right to know the truth,” Johnson wrote. “We will promptly have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and appropriate officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation appear at a committee hearing.”
The FBI is leading the formal investigation into the incident, according to a statement released Saturday evening. The bureau said it is “close” to identifying a suspect in the shooting, but is waiting for confirmation from a DNA test before officially confirming the identity.
