It’s "unimaginable" that shooter Thomas Crooks freely roamed in an area where there was a direct line of sight to former President Donald Trump, says retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer.
"I've been on both ends and sides of these teams," Shaffer told Newsmax TV’s "Chris Salcedo Show."
"I'm a member of law enforcement in Virginia. I've actually been an armed member of a personal security detail when my friend and boss, Sheriff David Decatur, asked me to accompany his team protecting Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
"So, I know how this is done. And this should not happen. The idea here that during an event … there was overlapping, and continuous layers of security, people were walking around, and this guy had alerting behavior. He had a rangefinder. He was acting suspiciously. He was moving around in areas which should have been secure," he added.
"And I can tell you based on my experience, I've talked to two sheriffs who have done this sort of thing, and they said there's no way their people would have allowed this guy to kind of casually roam around unattended in an area where there was a direct line of sight to the president and to the podium."
Crooks, 20, was reportedly spotted by law enforcement, using a rangefinder and looking at his phone, nearly an hour before Trump took the stage at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday.
According to NBC News, local police officers notified the former president’s Secret Service detail that they were looking for a suspicious person in the area.
The gunman first raised suspicions around 3 p.m. that day when he passed through the security screening area with the rangefinder.
Trump was shot in the ear before a Secret Service sniper killed Crooks.
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