Day: July 17, 2024

Tiffany Hsu reports on misinformation and disinformation and its origins, movement and consequences. She has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Tiffany Hsu

Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp. More about Sheera Frenkel

The discrepancy in their accounts is just one unsettled element in the effort to determine how security broke down and allowed a 20-year-old to open fire in a barrage that left Mr. Trump hurt, one man dead and two other people gravely wounded. An analysis of three videos posted on social media show that Secret Service snipers were orienting themselves toward the gunman at the Trump rally about two minutes before shots were fired.

Here’s what else to know:

• Secret Service fallout: The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, said she took responsibility for the events but did not plan to resign. Republicans have called her to testify in Congress next week about what happened on Saturday, including when local police told agents before Mr. Trump began speaking that they were investigating crowd reports of a suspicious person.

• Trump calls widow: Mr. Trump offered his condolences in a phone call on Tuesday to the widow of Corey Comperatore, the man killed at the rally. On Monday, the widow, Helen Comperatore, told The New York Post that she had not heard from the former president, and that she had declined to speak with President Biden when he called her after the shooting.

• Iran plot: U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking what they considered a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump in the weeks before the shooting, several officials said on Tuesday, but they added that they did not believe the threat was related to Saturday’s assassination attempt. The intelligence had prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his campaign rally in Butler.

• The hunt for motive: Investigators have gained access to the phone of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., the F.B.I. said on Monday. Technicians at the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Va., began sifting through the gunman’s texts, emails and other data, but did not immediately find clear evidence of a potential motive, or significant new details about possible connections to other people.

• The would-be assassin: Classmates who attended Bethel Park High School described the gunman in interviews as a smart but solitary and quiet student who did not want attention, walking through the halls with his head down and rarely raising his hand in class. At lunch, “He sat by himself, by choice,” said his high school guidance counselor.

Former President Donald J. Trump had just been shot at a rally only about 10 miles from the hospital, her chief medical officer informed her. He might be headed to Butler Memorial.

She jumped in her car and drove to the hospital, where a lockdown that would last three hours was already in place. Mr. Trump was indeed inside, and nobody — not even the hospital president — could go in or out.

Ms. Allen said she saw what she would estimate to be 40 or 50 law enforcement officers, including Secret Service agents, F.B.I. agents, Homeland Security agents and local and state police. Black SUVs dotted the parking lot.

“I had never seen anything like that at our hospital,” Ms. Allen said.

The hospital, which has 294 beds, was preparing for a shift change when Mr. Trump arrived, so the medical staff already inside stayed late to treat him while others treated newly arriving patients in the parking lot. The hospital was placed on diversion, meaning ambulances were barred from arriving, but patients could walk or be driven to the hospital, and security could arrange for medical equipment to be passed outside.

Dr. Dave Rottinghaus, an emergency room doctor at Butler Memorial, was one of the doctors treating people in the parking lot and said it was lucky that none of those patients had particularly serious conditions. The two people who were seriously wounded at the rally were taken to a different hospital, Allegheny General in Pittsburgh.

Neither Ms. Allen nor Dr. Rottinghaus would discuss Mr. Trump’s condition or treatment, and neither saw him throughout his time at the hospital.

“We heard that he was very friendly, very personable and shared his appreciation with the staff,” Ms. Allen said.

Both said they were saddened by the shooting, but also proud of their colleagues.

“It’s a high-pressure situation because it’s such a high-profile patient known throughout the world,” Dr. Rottinghaus said. “Our team really stepped up.”

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Mr. Comperatore’s sister, Kelly Comperatore Meeder, said members of the family had also spoken with representatives of the Trump campaign on Monday night. Ms. Comperatore Meeder said they had declined an invitation to speak with President Biden.

Mr. Comperatore, 50, was an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump and was eager on Saturday to see the former president for the first time in person. His sister said on Tuesday that her family believed that anger toward Mr. Trump was sown by President Biden and media outlets and had led to the fatal shooting.

“We’re not offering them anything,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder, 56, said of President Biden and his administration.

Mr. Comperatore was a father of two daughters and worked at a local plastics manufacturing company. He was also a longtime volunteer firefighter.

He had been so excited to attend his first rally for Mr. Trump that he woke up early to get in line, even after a late evening at a Chris Stapleton concert, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. He texted their mother that he and his family had been able to switch seats to get closer to the president. Their mother, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said, wanted him to wave at the television cameras so she could watch him.

When the shooting occurred minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech, Mr. Comperatore dove to shield his family members from gunfire, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Comperatore Meeder said she held media outlets “very much responsible” for her brother’s death because of the way she believes they have depicted Mr. Trump and his supporters.

“This was a 20-year-old boy on the roof,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. “He didn’t come back here from Vietnam. He didn’t see all of these terrible things. He just knows what he’s been hearing, what the media has portrayed this man to be, and it’s very unfair.”

Federal investigators are still trying to determine what drove the suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump. They have been searching his online activity and his phone but have not yet found indications of strongly held political beliefs.

Mr. Comperatore’s widow, Helen Comperatore, did not respond to requests for an interview this week, but she told the New York Post on Monday that she was not interested in talking to President Biden because her husband was an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump.

“I didn’t talk to Biden,” she told the newspaper. “I didn’t want to talk to him. My husband was a devout Republican, and he would not have wanted me to talk to him.”

Ms. Comperatore, however, added that she didn’t have any ill will toward President Biden. “He didn’t do anything bad to my husband. A 20-year-old despicable kid did.”

When she was a child, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said, she nicknamed her younger brother “Bud,” because he was her buddy. She remembered him riding his dirt bike as a child in Sarver, their rural community outside of Pittsburgh. Except for one time that he was caught riding without a helmet, she said, he never got in trouble.

He married his high school sweetheart, Helen, and put down roots where he was raised.

“You couldn’t have paid him to move from his hometown,” she said. “This was his home. These were his people.”

When Ms. Comperatore Meeder moved about 25 minutes up the highway, her brother expressed disbelief that she would go “that far away.” Their entire family lives in the area, she said.

“There just isn’t an adjective strong enough for you all to understand exactly how shattered we are,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. “We’re shattered.”

Christina Morales contributed reporting.

July 16, 2024, 4:31 p.m. ET

July 16, 2024, 4:31 p.m. ET

In a social media post shared with The New York Times by her sister-in-law, Helen Comperatore wrote that Trump had called to share his condolences. “He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” she wrote, adding that she had told the former president that her husband “left this world a hero, and God welcomed him in.”

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Video

A video shows that one minute and 35 seconds before the shooting, a sniper team turns from facing south to north, toward the gunman.CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram

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Trump: This is a big crowd. This is a big, big beautiful crowd.

CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram

In a later video, which starts one minute and 58 seconds before shots were fired, the Secret Service team looks in the direction of the gunman through binoculars and a sniper scope. The rally attendee taking the video is heard saying, “Uh-oh, something’s going on.”

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Something’s going on. Something’s going on.

CreditCredit…Moshe Schwartz, via X

At the same time as this video was taken, another clip, shared on Facebook, shows attendees near the building where the gunman was positioned pointing law enforcement to someone on the roof.

A third video shows that one minute and 35 seconds before the shooting, while the Secret Service team’s attention is still focused toward the gunman, a second sniper team, positioned farther south, turns from facing south to north, toward the gunman. The short clip shows them turn with their weapons and crouch, and then it ends. Later, as shots were fired, this second Secret Service team is seen in another video in the same position, facing the gunman.

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Trump: Ensure we take back the White House. Because if we do, we’re going to make America better than ever before. We’re going to make it — and it’s not easy because we have millions and millions of people in our country that shouldn’t be here. In recorded history, we had the best border. In fact, if they could ever put up a chart, I don’t know if they could do it. Do you guys have access to that chart that I love so much? You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter, do you?

CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram

A handful of rally attendees in the bleachers behind Mr. Trump are looking in the direction of the gunman and Secret Service snipers, with one man pointing toward them while talking to a person next to him.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has said that local police officers radioed agents about a possible suspicious person before Mr. Trump came onstage. It’s unclear if the sniper teams were alerted.

Nailah Morgan contributed video production.

The discrepancy in their accounts is just one unsettled element in the effort to determine how security broke down and allowed a 20-year-old with a semiautomatic rifle to open fire in a rapid barrage that left Mr. Trump hurt, one man dead and two other people at the rally gravely wounded.

That this simple matter — whether law enforcement used the same building as the gunman — is still not easily resolved three days after the shooting shows that divisions are emerging among the law enforcement agencies after a would-be assassin came close to felling the Republican presidential nominee two days before the party’s convention.

The Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, set off the back and forth in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday morning, her first public appearance since the assassination attempt. She said that local officers were inside the building used by the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., on Saturday evening. If so, that meant the gunman could have scaled a building even as snipers were stationed inside it.

“There was local police in that building — there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” Ms. Cheatle said.

Several local law enforcement agencies immediately put out statements saying they were not in the same building as the gunman. That led to the Secret Service making a statement on social media saying that it valued local law enforcement.

While local law enforcement officers are used for additional security in an event like a campaign rally, it was the Secret Service’s job to determine the security plan and keep the protectee — in this case Mr. Trump — safe.

“The safety and security of a protectee falls on the shoulders of the Secret Service, period,” said John Cohen, a former law enforcement official who has worked with the Secret Service for years at both the state and federal levels.

“You have a former president who was close to being assassinated,” Mr. Cohen said. “There’s nothing more illustrative of the threat that we’re facing.”

Ms. Cheatle did say in the interview with ABC: “The buck stops with me. I’m the director of the Secret Service. It was unacceptable, and it’s something that shouldn’t happen again.”

Concerns about violence going into the 2024 election have been elevated as the country has seen a rise in threats of political violence — and in some cases actual attacks — on government officials, lawmakers and election workers.

On Tuesday, it was reported that the U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking what they considered a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump before Saturday’s events, believed to be unrelated to Mr. Crooks. The intelligence had prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before Saturday’s outdoor rally, but not enough to stop a gunman from shooting at him.

At the heart of the dispute between the Secret Service and local agencies is a warren of warehouses, adjacent to the rally site, the Butler Farm Show grounds, and who was responsible for securing them.

The cluster of buildings, owned by the manufacturer AGR International, stood just north of the stage. The one closest to the stage was a one-floor building with a few windows and a sloped roof. Immediately behind it, and slightly offset, was a two-floor building with more windows. More warehouses lined up behind those.

The Secret Service had determined that the entire warehouse complex should be outside its most secure perimeter and thus delegated to local law enforcement to sweep and secure.

The gunman used the roof of the one-story building closest to the stage from which to fire his AR-15-type weapon.

But agencies are offering different accounts about which building local law enforcement used as a staging area and a perch for the three local officers called counter snipers. These officers were watching over the crowd as it gathered in the secure zone, a local law enforcement official, who was not authorized to give public statements, said in an interview with The Times.

It was the two-floor building, the one behind the warehouse used by the gunman, where those snipers were stationed by the windows, the official said.

After the gunman made it to the roof of the one-story warehouse, a local officer was hoisted by another officer up the building’s wall and over the parapet, only to lock eyes on the gunman, Sheriff Michael T. Slupe of Butler County and a federal law enforcement official said.

The gunman pointed his weapon at the officer, who immediately retreated, the officials said. Shortly after, the gunman began firing at the rally, and a Secret Service sniper shot and killed him.

Jim Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said he was frustrated with the narrative of the local police having responsibility in one place and the Secret Service in another.

“That’s nonsensical,” he said in an interview. Local law enforcement officers are additional resources that are vital to the Secret Service’s security mission, he said, likening the agency to the general contractor for presidential-related security events.

“It doesn’t matter who the subcontractors are,” he said. “Your name is on the truck.”

The Secret Service, in a social media post on Tuesday, said it was not criticizing its local law enforcement partners in Butler, calling the officers courageous. “Any news suggesting the Secret Service is blaming local law enforcement for Saturday’s incident is simply not true.”

One point of general agreement: No one from law enforcement was on the roof of any of the AGR warehouse buildings on Saturday.

In her interview with ABC, Ms. Cheatle said no officers were stationed atop the roof itself because it would not be safe.

“That building in particular has a sloped roof, at its highest point,” she said. “And so there’s a safety factor that would be considered there, that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. So the decision was made to secure the building from inside.”

Former Secret Service agents said that agents do take up positions on roofs more steeply sloped than that one — indeed, Secret Service snipers were perched on a steeper roof behind Mr. Trump at the same event. But they said the agency also weighed safety and sometimes opted to block access to sloped roofs instead of putting someone on top.

“The bottom line is, the roof should have been posted and utilized as an observation post with police officers on it,” said Joe Funk, a former agent who protected Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

David A. Fahrenthold contributed reporting from Washington, and Kate Kelly from New York.

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The National Security Council contacted the Secret Service to be sure it was tracking the latest reporting and the agency shared the information with the head of Mr. Trump’s detail, according to a national security official, who like others shared sensitive information on condition of anonymity.

The Trump campaign was informed “in passing” by the Secret Service of a general uptick in threats against Mr. Trump but was not made aware of any specific dangers related to Iranian individuals or groups, according to a person briefed on the interactions between the campaign and Secret Service. It was not clear what, if anything, Mr. Trump himself was told.

The intelligence that prompted the warning was new, but consistent with previous threat information against lower-level current and former U.S. officials, according to officials informed about the matter. The intensifying campaign season, with increasingly frequent public rallies, offered more opportunities for an attack. Several national security officials said that although the threat was taken seriously, it did not appear from the intelligence to be fully developed.

Officials would not discuss how they had come by the information, but said that their conclusion was drawn from multiple strands of intelligence collected by multiple agencies that were not clear until they were all put together into a single picture. While Iran has targeted Americans before, trying to assassinate a former president now running for his old office would be a dramatic escalation that could risk war, so U.S. officials were trying to determine if it was merely aspirational or if there was a concrete plan.

Either way, several officials said the Secret Service had recently surged additional “resources and assets,” although they declined to describe specifically what changes had been made. The fact that security was already enhanced for the Butler rally because of the apparently unrelated threat will raise further questions about the failure of the Secret Service to protect Mr. Trump.

One U.S. official briefed on the intelligence was sharply critical of the Secret Service for allowing the Pennsylvania gunman to get so close, arguing that the agency’s knowledge of the Iranian threat should have prompted it to be more cautious. President Biden has already ordered an independent review of the security breakdown in Butler, and Congress is planning its own inquiries.

Authorities have identified Saturday’s gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from nearby Bethel Park, Pa., but have yet to publicly describe any motivation for the shooting. Mr. Crooks, who was killed by Secret Service snipers, was a registered Republican but once gave $15 to a progressive political group. He left no social media trail that revealed any strong political feelings. People who knew him said he kept to himself but was often bullied in high school.

The Iranian threat stemmed from Tehran’s longstanding desire to take revenge for the strike ordered by Mr. Trump in January 2020 that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops in Iraq over the years. Reported Iranian threats against Trump administration officials like Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, and John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, resulted in government security details even after they left office.

“As we have said many times, we have been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Qassim Suleimani. We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority.”

Ms. Watson emphasized that the Iranian plot was separate from the Butler assassination attempt. “The investigation of Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Trump is active and ongoing,” she said. “At this time, law enforcement has reported that their investigation has not identified ties between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or domestic.”

CNN previously reported on the Iran threat information. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, hinted at a threat emanating from overseas during a briefing on Monday at the White House.

“The threat landscape is very dynamic, both domestically with the rise of domestic violent extremism,” he said, and “of course, we have seen the foreign threat environment increase as well.”

The Trump campaign declined to discuss the matter. “We do not comment on President Trump’s security detail,” the campaign said in a statement. “All questions should be directed to the United States Secret Service.”

Iran disputed reports of a plan to kill Mr. Trump. “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement. “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Suleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”

Iran has made clear its desire for retribution one way or another. As the first anniversary of the Suleimani strike approached in early January 2021, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned publicly that “those who ordered the murder of General Suleimani” would “be punished.” Mr. Trump, about to enter his final weeks in office, told Florida friends at a holiday cocktail party that he was concerned that Iran would try to assassinate him.

In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps with planning to assassinate Mr. Bolton, a plan thwarted by an informant who posed as a would-be assassin. Documents filed in court indicated that an Iranian operative had obtained details of Mr. Bolton’s movements that were not publicly known at the time.

Mr. Bolton was granted government security protection after the threat against him materialized, as was Mr. Pompeo. Others who have been reported to be targeted include Robert O’Brien, another former national security adviser to Mr. Trump; Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary at the time of the strike on Mr. Suleimani; Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a former head of the U.S. Central Command who oversaw the operation; and Brian Hook, the State Department special envoy for Iran under Mr. Trump.

U.S. officials said Iran had never stopped trying to kill those it blamed for the Suleimani operation. As recently as February, the intelligence community noted in its annual threat assessment that Iran “will continue to directly threaten U.S. persons in the Middle East” and was trying to develop networks in the United States to attack officials “as retaliation for the killing” of Suleimani. It noted that Iran “previously has attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.”

Ms. Watson said on Tuesday that the government took these threats seriously. “As part of that comprehensive response,” she said, “we have invested extraordinary resources in developing additional information about these threats, disrupting individuals involved in these threats, enhancing the protective arrangements of potential targets of these threats, engaging with foreign partners and directly warning Iran.”

David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.

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CreditCredit…Noah Throop and Mark Boyer/The New York Times

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Ms. Cheatle also is scheduled to testify on Monday before the House Oversight Committee.

“The American people want answers on what happened Saturday in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Green said in a statement, adding: “It is imperative that we partner to understand what went wrong, and how Congress can work with the departments and agencies to ensure this never happens again.”

Mr. Green has demanded that the Secret Service turn over documents to his committee by Friday. Those include the agency’s security plan for the campaign rally in Butler, Pa., where a gunman opened fire, and all documents and communications — including text messages and emails — among federal law enforcement regarding Mr. Trump’s security.

Mr. Green spoke with Ms. Cheatle on Sunday, and with Robert Wells, the F.B.I. executive assistant director, on Monday, according to his office.

At least three congressional committees said they had begun preliminary inquiries about how the gunman got within 500 feet of Mr. Trump, and some lawmakers have called for an independent commission to oversee them.

In the Senate, the Homeland Security Committee has announced a bipartisan inquiry.

On Monday, the streets were open to the public again, and neighbors described the chaos of the past few days and their impressions of the 20-year-old man who had lived in their midst. He was killed by Secret Service counter snipers after opening fire on Mr. Trump.

Kelly Little, 38, who moved in across the street from the Crooks in 2018, said the family was polite, but not overly friendly. “I’ve never had a conversation with them,” she said. “They seem normal. They wave, they smile. They seemed like normal, quiet people.”

Ms. Little’s son, Liam Campbell, 17, said he often rode the bus with Mr. Crooks.

“He didn’t speak to anyone, and no one spoke to him,” he said. “He seemed like the kind of person who didn’t like to start conversations with people he didn’t know. He seemed nervous.”

In recent months, several neighbors said, they had seen Mr. Crooks taking long walks around the neighborhood. He often looked down while he listened to music through headphones, Liam remembered. “The kid walked around a lot by himself,” he said.

Residents said the normally quiet neighborhood became a hub of activity after the shooting on Saturday. Liam said that around 10:30 or 11 p.m. on Saturday, the State Police ordered his family to evacuate for about 24 hours — a time when F.B.I. officials have said that officers were searching the Crooks house for a possible explosive device, among other things.

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Mr. Fehl wrote that Mr. Comperatore had served his family, church, community and country “with a heart of service to the Lord.”

“Whether it was taking part in a small group, serving on the trustees or lending his expertise to a building project, he was constantly helping the people around him,” he wrote.

Mr. Comperatore, 50, died at the rally on Saturday after a gunman on a rooftop attempted to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump. In Mr. Comperatore’s final moments, he dove to shield his family members who had accompanied him to the rally, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

The funeral arrangements will include a public visitation on Thursday in Freeport, Pa. Mr. Fehl told congregants to “expect large crowds, security and media.”

The funeral on Friday morning will be a private event for family and friends. It will be followed by a procession of up to 500 fire trucks heading toward the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, where Mr. Comperatore served for decades, including as chief in the early 2000s.

Friends said that Mr. Comperatore was devoted to his wife, Helen, and daughters, Allyson, 27, and Kaylee, 24. He loved to fish and took meticulous care of his cars, boat and lawn. His two Dobermans, Ivan and Negan, were well trained, a neighbor said. The most recent Cabot Church newsletter celebrated his birthday and wedding anniversary, both in June.

Mr. Comperatore worked as a project and tooling engineer at JSP, a plastics manufacturing company, and, according to his obituary, served in the U.S. Army Reserves.

“His courage was not the loud and boisterous kind; it was the courage of quiet resilience, the strength to be vulnerable and the bravery to lead with love,” his obituary said.

Elizabeth Dias contributed reporting.

July 16, 2024, 11:35 a.m. ET

July 16, 2024, 11:35 a.m. ET

After retrieving the names of immediate family members, agents found a photograph online that matched the face of the dead gunman. It all took about 30 minutes, according to the officials and the A.T.F. timeline.

Since Mr. Crooks’s attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, a number of his classmates and others who encountered him have portrayed him as a recluse who shied away from attention, and was taunted by other students over the camouflage outfits he sometimes wore and his solitary demeanor.

But Mr. Knapp, who counseled Mr. Crooks during his entire four years at the school and had become acquainted with his family, suggested that the emerging portrait didn’t tell the whole story of Mr. Crooks.

“This kid was not a monster,” said Mr. Knapp, a 30-year veteran of the school who retired in 2022, around the time Mr. Crooks graduated. “This kid was not a bad kid. Something snapped. Something evil in the world happened.”

He said Mr. Crooks was a good student who took challenging classes, was well-liked by teachers and stayed out of trouble. He pushed back on claims by other students that Mr. Crooks was a loner, saying he had a small group of friends; they just did not share the same lunch period.

Mr. Knapp said the Bethel Park School District was particularly active about addressing mental health, making therapists and social workers accessible to students.

“In Thomas’s case, he really never sought them out,” Mr. Knapp said, “and he didn’t have any reason to at that time because he really was doing well in school, he wasn’t being picked on, he wasn’t being bullied. He just went about it his way and did things the way he wanted to do them.”

Mr. Knapp said he was shocked when he learned what had happened. He expressed sadness over the violence that left one spectator at the rally dead and two others seriously injured: “I feel terrible for those families. I feel terrible for Thomas’s family. And I attribute it all to evil in the world.”

Mr. Knapp said he did not have any insights into Mr. Crooks’ political leanings; the subject never came up in conversations, and he never made it obvious.

“Was he right wing, left wing? Don’t know that at all,” he said.

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July 16, 2024, 10:23 a.m. ET

July 16, 2024, 10:23 a.m. ET

The gunman bought about 50 rounds of ammunition just prior to the shooting, they said.

At outdoor events like this, the Secret Service sets both an inner perimeter — to be controlled by the agency itself — and an outer area patrolled by local police. At this event, the Secret Service left the warehouse in the outer perimeter. Former Secret Service agents have questioned that decision, as the building offered an ideal perch for a sniper: an elevated rooftop within rifle range of the former president. While local law enforcement officers are used for additional security in an event like a campaign rally, the Secret Service is the agency charged first and foremost with protecting America’s leaders, including former presidents.

Videos from the scene and accounts from eyewitnesses show members of the crowd noticed the gunman on the roof and notified police officers before he fired. In the interview with ABC, Ms. Cheatle said there was only “a very short period of time” between those reports and when the gunman fired.

“I don’t have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,” she said. “Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult.”

The warehouse building was a staging area for local law enforcement, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged in a separate interview.

Ms. Cheatle, who was appointed by President Biden in 2022, said she took responsibility for Saturday night’s events. “The buck stops with me,” she said. “I am the director of the Secret Service.” She said she did not plan to resign.

The Secret Service has acknowledged that before Trump went onstage, local officers were searching for a “suspicious” man who had been flagged by passers-by and that the Secret Service was notified of that hunt. The agency has not said how much earlier that search went on or when the agency was notified of it.

Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting.