'He's Right There': Video Reveals Suspect Crawling On Roof Near Trump’s Stage As Bystanders Alert Police

A new purported video of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump shows a suspect crawling on a rooftop as several bystanders point him out to police in Butler, Pennsylvania.

On Sunday, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the suspect who, according to US media reports, slipped onto a rooftop 150 meters from the stage where Trump was addressing his supporters. The gunfire killed a 50-year-old man, critically wounded two other spectators, and struck Trump’s ear but did not seriously injure him.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Assassination Attempt Live Updates: Ex-US President In Milwaukee To Confirm GOP Nomination; Biden Urges Calm

Before the shooting began, the crowd in Butler was heard shouting about the attacker for nearly a minute before US Secret Service agents responded. The footage has raised questions about how the attacker was able to come so close to Trump. In a video going viral on X, a man can be heard saying, “Someone is on the roof. He is right there. He is lying down. Do you see him?”

A man who witnessed the assassination attempt on Donald Trump has disclosed that he warned Secret Service agents about a gunman on a nearby roof minutes before the shooting occurred. Greg Smith, owner of Brenckle’s Farms & Greenhouses, told Daily Mail he saw the suspect climbing onto a building’s roof outside the event in Butler, Pennsylvania. Smith expressed his confusion over the lack of immediate action from the agents.

“I kept thinking, ‘Why is Trump still speaking on this stage? Why is he still up there?'” Smith told DailyMail.com. After the gunman began shooting, Smith reported seeing the Secret Service agents fatally shoot the attacker, as shown in a BBC video. Smith then quickly gathered his wife and three children and sought safety. Reflecting on the incident, he described it as a major security lapse, questioning why the area was not better secured given its relatively small size and limited buildings.

Questions swirled on Sunday over how one of the most protected political figures on earth, guarded by a state-of-the-art security detail, could have found himself just dozens of yards from an attacker carefully aiming a rifle at his head.

Interrogations centered on the extent of the perimeter established by the security services, in particular the US Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting America’s top political figures.

As the world pores over the second-by-second details of the events of Saturday, it has been established that the gunman was on the roof of a nearby building, around 150 meters from Trump. “That’s the most surprising thing to me, when we have a former president here, that a guy was…able to get up on a roof and take a shot,” said Richard Goldinger, the district attorney for Butler County, Pennsylvania, where the political rally took place.

“We had some law enforcement in that building, (making it) even more surprising that he was able to get up there,” he told MSNBC. Richard Painter, a White House official under George W. Bush and now a law professor at the University of Minnesota, called for “a detailed investigation into this egregious security failure.”

“If there is a rooftop within rifle range of a president or a presidential candidate, it’s the Secret Service that should be on that rooftop. “Have they ever heard of the Texas Book Depository?” he said, referring to the building from where Lee Harvey Oswald murdered President John F. Kennedy using a long-range rifle in 1963. “The shooter was outside the Secret Service perimeter. What kind of a perimeter is that? We know that any crackpot can all too easily buy a high-powered rifle in the United States. The perimeter needs to be as far as the eye can see,” he added.

(With agency inputs)