Breaking down the bodycam footage: Video from Trump’s Butler County rally shows disconnect between agencies
Several police officers express frustration and uncertainty in body camera footage of the July 13 rally for former President Donald Trump, which was recently released by the Butler Township police department.
One officer says in a video he told Secret Service personnel to post staff members by the AGR International building at a meeting the Tuesday before the rally. In the same video, someone says to the officer wearing the body camera “I thought you guys were on the roof,” followed by “I wasn’t even concerned about it because I thought someone was on the roof.”
The officer responds, “I talked to the Secret Service guys, they were like, ‘No problem, we’re going to post guys over here.’”
The videos released contain footage from before the attempted shooting of Trump, and the aftermath where officers speak with witnesses, direct individuals away from the venue of the Butler Farm Show and even climb the roof to see the shooter’s body.
There is also a video from an officer who is lifted by another officer onto the roof of AGR International before dropping down to communicate that the individual on the roof had a gun. After dropping to the ground, the officer appears to run to warn other officers, although there is no sound in the portion of the video where the officer encounters the shooter or the immediate aftermath.
Other footage shows officers speaking with witnesses at the rally, including a person who was stopped for having a similar appearance to the shooter. At one point in one of the videos, the body camera footage shows a man dressed in a suit and sunglasses ask the officer if the person on the roof was a shooter and if he had a weapon.
The Butler Township police department declined to comment on the videos. However, an email from Lt. Matthew Pearson said some of the videos included do not have sound because they were “Record After the Fact,” technology that gives agencies the ability to go back in time and recover video.
