WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The new acting chief of the U.S. Secret Service said that local police in Pennsylvania should not be held responsible for security failures leading up to the assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last month.
“In no way should any state or local agency supporting us in Butler on July 13th be held responsible for a Secret Service failure,” U.S. Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told reporters on Friday. “This was a Secret Service failure. That roof line should have been covered – we should have had better eyes on (that).”
In testimony to Congress earlier this week, Rowe had blamed the failure on local law enforcement.
The first shooting of a U.S. president or major party candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.
Officials said that 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired the shots that wounded Trump’s right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle, before law enforcement snipers shot and killed him.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Costas Pitas; Editing by Scott Malone and Chizu Nomiyama)
