US Secret Service Missed 102 Warnings Before Trump Assassination Attempt in July 2024

A report from the US Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General revealed that the Secret Service failed to act on 102 warnings about the shooter at Donald Trump's July 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The failure was attributed to the absence of a joint communication center with local law enforcement in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in the Secret Service receiving only a handful of alerts about the suspect. Consequently, the Secret Service did not notify Trump's security detail about the suspicious individual.

The shooter, Thomas Crooks, fired from a rooftop with a direct line of sight to Trump during his speech and was killed by authorities on the spot. The report also uncovered that Crooks had flown a drone over the area for nearly nine minutes before the shooting, but the Secret Service's drone detection system failed to identify it. The system was operated by a single, untrained individual, allowing the drone to go undetected.

Following the incident, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned, calling the event "the greatest operational failure of the agency in decades." The Inspector General's recommendations focused on improving information sharing and addressing vulnerabilities in security line-of-sight before such events. The Secret Service accepted these recommendations and stated many have already been implemented.

This assassination attempt was the first of three targeting Trump within a short period around his re-election. The second occurred in September 2024 outside his Florida golf club, where an armed assailant came dangerously close, renewing criticism of the Secret Service. The third took place in April 2025 in Washington during a White House press event, where agents swiftly evacuated Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and the Vice President after gunfire was heard nearby. In that incident, the shooter was armed with a hunting rifle and positioned just 15 meters from the event entrance.