The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was one of the worst Secret Service failures in recent years, and technological mistakes contributed to the event.
There were several problems that contributed to the chaos on July 13 that left one man dead and three people, including Trump, injured, according to the New York Times.
Among those missteps was a radio transmission about the shooter that never went through, the agency turning down an offer to use surveillance drones, not having a system to boost cellular service, and a system to detect drone use that didn’t work.
The transmission proved to be the most critical failure. An officer had yelled “long gun” into a law enforcement radio system, but the radio message was dropped and never went through to Secret Service agents.
The Secret Service’s technological mistakes were felt more after it was learned that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter, used a drone to scout out the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally site before his shooting attempt. The agency could have detected the drone and flagged it but remained unaware.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. told senators in a hearing that the agency could have snuffed out the shooter’s attempts to scout the rally and prevented the shooting.
“That has cost me a lot of sleep,” Rowe testified. “It is something that I have struggled with to understand, and I have no explanation for it.”
Crooks shot Trump in the ear, killed a Pennsylvania fire chief, and injured two others in the attempt on the former president’s life. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle condemned the showing of political violence.
A former Secret Service officer, Chris DeMunbrun, told the New York Times that the agency often took years to adopt new technology. He resigned after “growing frustrated with the agency’s lack of progress on embracing new tools.”
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The agency’s slow technological progress comes as companies sell software that can take video feeds from cameras to spot exposed firearms. If the agency had proper technology on-site, it likely would have prevented the attempt on Trump’s life.
The Secret Service has already faced a reckoning for its inaction that day, as former Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after congressional questioning. The agency continues to face rigorous congressional inquiries on presidential security.