'He's on the Roof!': Rally Attendees Warned Cops

A video shared online late Sunday confirms people who attended the rally where President Trump was shot Saturday in Pennsylvania warned law enforcement of a suspicious man on a roof shortly before bullets were fired. A small group can be seen looking in the direction of a low building, where a man is seen lying on the roof and occasionally moving. "He's on the roof!" a woman says. "Officer! Officer!" a man shouts. A uniformed police officer, apparently with the Butler Township Police Department, is also seen looking toward the building's roof in the footage, the Washington Post reports. Less than a minute and a half later, shots rang out.

Several witnesses claimed to have seen a man on the roof of an industrial equipment business bordering the farm show grounds where Trump was speaking in Butler County. The location, outside of the secure area guarded by the Secret Service, was being monitored by local police. However, the Secret Service signs off on the overall security plan, per the Post. The agency is now under pressure to explain how the shooter was able to fire off shots at the former president from a distance of no more than 500 feet, per CNN. Though Director Kimberly Cheatle praised agents Sunday for quickly moving Trump to safety, President Biden said he'd ordered an "independent review" of security at the event.

One witness told the BBC he tried to alert police for "two or three minutes" after seeing a man with a rifle climb onto the roof. "They didn't know what was going on," the man said of police. Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe said a police officer pulled himself up on the roof but then found himself in the crosshairs, his own hands engaged. The officer "lets go because he doesn't want to get killed," Slupe said, per the Post. This wasn't the first time attendees had made police aware of the shooter. According to NBC News, the individual was first flagged as he was acting strangely near the magnetometers guarding the secure area. Local police did notify Secret Service that they were looking for a suspicious person, a US official tells the outlet. (More Trump rally shooting stories.)