Young Mister Crooks did indeed fail the test to enter the marksmanship team. He was a member of a local shooting club and used their 200 yard rifle range sometimes.

The big question is why that roof didn't have a cop standing on it. Theories:
1. Not enough people (unlikely).
2. Nobody took the threat seriously.
3. The counter-snipers had it covered.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Monday, July 15, 2024 - 06:11 pm: Edit

Another statement put out, probably by the Locals, that they had no inter agency communications on the ground with the SS Team.....

Been 23 years and the same problem still exists...
This was exactly why Homeland Security was created...

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, July 15, 2024 - 08:16 pm: Edit

The FBI managed to get into the shooter's cell phone earlier today. Apparently, it has provided precisely zero information on motive.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 - 03:51 pm: Edit

There are credible reports that Iran has sent a team to assassinate Trump. The incident last saturday isn't related. The head of the Secret Service said that nobody was on that roof because it sloped and wasn't safe, but this is nonsense because there were other cops on other sloped roofs around the area.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 - 07:48 pm: Edit

Apparently, the shooter was featured in a Blackrock video, seeming now removed.....

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, July 16, 2024 - 08:29 pm: Edit

For sufficiently broad definitions of "featured". Per BlackRock, the ad was filmed at Bethel Park High School in Pennsylvania, during which Crooks and other unpaid students appeared briefly alongside a real teacher. I.e., it's about as irrelevant as it gets.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 - 07:03 am: Edit

b{it's about as irrelevant as it gets.}

Still disappeared pretty quick....
So wasn't irrelevant to someone....

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 - 09:00 am: Edit

Whenever an event like this happens, anyone with even the most remote, incidental connection with the culprit does their level best to distance themselves from it. The gun club he frequented did so; the company that made the t-shirt he was wearing did so; etc.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 - 11:39 pm: Edit

A really interesting and second-by-second account of the shooting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJId8hiZgGs

Another https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bLJPUMX46o

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 18, 2024 - 03:16 am: Edit

Latest news is that the shooter posted on STEAM that 13 July would be his big day. There were numerous searches on his laptop for both Trump and Biden so the shooter may have decided which one to attack based on convenience of location.

The building was assigned to Butler Police Department but they said they only had 12 total officers and that the Secret Service had assigned them too many any jobs. The Secret Service then told Butler PD not to worry about the building but never assigned it to someone else. Apparently the Secret Service has been taking shortcuts for months and got caught.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, July 18, 2024 - 08:24 am: Edit

The FBI has noted that he also looked at FBI Director Christopher Wray and members of the British royal family.

Increasingly, it appears that this was someone looking to go out in a blaze of infamy, and he didn't really care who went down in doing so.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, July 18, 2024 - 03:53 pm: Edit

No disrespect to the fire chief killed, but I think Mr Crooks managed only a Fizzle of Infamy.

Can you imagine the fist fights, outrage, and civil war that would result from Trump being murdered due to perceived Secret Service mistakes?

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, July 18, 2024 - 04:44 pm: Edit

SVC? I've imagined tons of stuff like that which would have likely blown up EVERYwhere.

The LEAST of them would get me fed to the Alligators, and WebMom doesn't want them to be lost to Cholesterol poisoning, so I'll leave it at that.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 07:22 am: Edit

It looks increasingly more like the Secret Service may have fielded the second string of the JV team for this assignment. While I'm sure there are many members of this team that may have the motivation, dedication, and desire to do this mission, I do question the capabilities, experience, stature, competence, and readiness of some of its members and especially the advance prep team. When one cannot holster one's weapon and move methodically under pressure, then their training and leadership have failed them, the principle, and killed and injured bystanders. This is a systemic failure of its entire chain of command and their use of the DEI program.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 11:28 am: Edit

When one fails to love excellence in one's vocation, other people suffer.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 01:00 pm: Edit

The conspiracy theorists are at it again…

A spate (cute word to indicate “few” or a low number on the order of three or four), of bloggers have posted video that they purport to be a second shooter involved in the assassination attempt on the Republican Nominee.

So far, two clips have been posted that show a shadowy figure on top of the Butler community water tower.

This could be a hoax. But if it is not a hoax, then the whole “Rogue Assassin” story being pushed by the government (Homeland Security, SS, FBI etc) is actually a cover story along the lines of the 1963 JFK assassination plot, only substituting “Water Tower” for “Grassy Knoll”.

To be honest, for a moment, the clarity of the video is about on a par of the camera picture “proof” of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Some lucky hacker must have just won the lottery with the global IT shutdown disaster occurring currently.

For the fun of conspiracy theorists it was not too long ago that Elon vowed further revenge on Bill for shorting his corporate stock (and trash talking).

By Warren Mathews (Turtle) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 02:23 pm: Edit

I will say this, speaking from my experience of being in the army and reading a lot of military history and strategy books: Never let the enemy have any ground that you can see from your location. This is asking for trouble and trouble found them.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 02:25 pm: Edit

Lar: it's not a hack. It's a defective update from CrowdSource.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 02:57 pm: Edit

I am sure that is true but I am a product of 20th-21st century Entertainews engineering. There will be a conspiracy :0

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Hey, if there's no evidence of conspiracy, that just proves how comprehensive the conspiracy REALLY is.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 03:42 pm: Edit

Why does the Secret Service have such an unfocused missions of protecting the president and anti-counterfeiting / consumer protection?

By Jason E. Schaff (Jschaff297061) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 04:57 pm: Edit

Chuck:

Basically, it's a historical anomaly. In 1894, Grover Cleveland needed to be assigned a security detail due to some sort of threat or another. At the time, the Secret Service was the largest armed federal service outside the military so they were given the job as an ad-hoc assignment. After the 1901 assassination of McKinley, Congress made presidential security an official part of the Secret Service portfolio.

(the above being a gross over-simplification)

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Over simplification, perhaps.

But I suspect that you are “spot on accurate.”

Prior to the Secret Service, I believe the Pinkerton Detective Agency, (a civilian business, not a department of the government), had a contract to protect President Abraham Lincoln, up until they botched the assignment at Fords Theater, in Washington, D.C.

Another famous case the Pinkertons were associated with was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Not sure if it was the Pinkertons that caught up with Butch and Sundancre down in South America (as the movie made it seem.) or if it was just bad luck and the local law enforcement.

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Friday, July 19, 2024 - 05:35 pm: Edit

The other thing about the SS history is that their mission and relative seniority within the Federal LE community changed significantly when they moved from Treasury to DHS after 9/11. This was viewed as a humiliating demotion by many veteran agents and many left or took early retirement. The subsequent generational brain drain is something IMHO that has had a big negative ripple effect over time.

There's a big difference between being part of an elite unit charged with protecting the President and other senior government officials globally vs. being just another part of the DHS alphabet soup doing LE stuff.

--Mike