US President Trump along with first lady Melania trump travelled to East Rutherford to watch a match between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea at the MetLife stadium. He was attending the FIFA Club World Cup final hosted by the US alongside family members and close advisers.Sunday’s match marks the one year anniversary of Trump surviving an assassination attempt at him at Butler, Pennsylvania, while he was campaigning for President. JD Vance, the vice president of US called the event the “most iconic moment” that he has witnessed in American politics. “Remains the most iconic moment I’ve ever seen in American politics. One year ago today,” his post on X read.
“Preventable failures”
A recently released report by the Senate committee asserts that the event last year was a “cascade of preventable failures” and called for stronger measures to be taken with the Secret Service in the future.The committee reported that communications were mishandled in the rally attended by Trump an he was also not allotted extra security that day. “A 20-year-old gunman was able to evade detection by the country’s top protective agency for nearly 45 minutes,” said the committee adding that no one has been fired yet, as reported by the Guardian.Supervisors had anticipated that large pieces of farm equipment would be positioned to obstruct the view from the building. However, those were never put in place, and staffers who visited the site ahead of the rally failed to inform their supervisors that the line-of-sight issues remained unresolved, stated a report by the Secret Service, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
What had happened
Michael Thomas Crooks, 20, had climbed on top of a roof of a nearby building in Butler while Trump was addressing a rally, and opened fire using an AROI5-style rifle, on July 13 2024. A bullet had grazed Trump’s ear and left him wounded while Corey Comperatore, a person attending the rally was killed.The report released by the committee does not offer any new information on the motives of Crooks but does offer an insight on the incoherent communication between the Secret service and the local law enforcement who are responsible for securing events such as this. An investigation reiterated that there was a “chaotic mixture” phone, mails, radio, text messages used to communicate on that day, as reported by Los Angeles Times. “I can’t understand how [so] many errors were made on that site that day,” said Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent. “If they agreed to leave that roof unoccupied, I can’t … understand it for the life of me,” he said.
A year later
Secret Service has suspended six agents but have stressed that they are not going to fire anyone and focus on the “root cause” and “fix deficiencies.” “We aren’t going to fire our way out of this. We’re going to focus on the root cause and fix the deficiencies that put us in that situation,” said Secret Service deputy director Matt Quinn to CBS news. “Since President Trump appointed me as director of the United States Secret Service, I have kept my experience on July 13 top of mind, and the agency has taken many steps to ensure such an event can never be repeated in the future,” said Sean Curran who was one of the agents standing near Trump as he was escorted off the stage after the shooting. Curran is now in charge of leading the Secret Service.The image of Trump defiantly raising his fist moments after the attack became a powerful political symbol, contributing to Joe Biden’s exit from the race and rapidly intensifying support for Trump’s presidency, reports The Guardian.A painting depicting the scene now hangs prominently in the foyer of the White House State Floor, near the staircase leading to the president’s residence, as reported by AP.
