Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania SWAT officer says team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting

Published

6 months ago

July 28, 2024

Pennsylvania SWAT officer says team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting

A police officer on a local tactical team assigned to former President Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, said there was no contact between their SWAT team and the U.S. Secret Service before Trump was shot.

“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived,” the Beaver County team’s lead sharpshooter Jason Woods told ABC News. “That never happened.”

Woods told the outlet that the lack of communication was likely part of the critical failure in planning that ended with 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks wounding Trump, killing spectator Corey Compartore and injuring two others before he was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.

TRUMP SHOOTING: TIMELINE OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW GUNMAN EVADED SECURITY

Trump holds fist — Donald Trump, with blood on his face, is surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is taken off the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.

“I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened,” he continued. “We had no communication.”

In the wake of the assassination attempt, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, and a series of law enforcement and congressional probes have been announced.

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Woods told ABC News that he and his team were in position hours before Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show, but his team’s first communication with the Secret Service was “not until after the shooting.” By then, he said, it was “too late.”

TRUMP CAMP QUESTIONS WHY THEY WEREN’T ALERTED OF SUSPICIOUS PERSON PRIOR TO ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally — Former President Trump reacts as multiple shots ring out during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.

WATCH: THOUSANDS DESCEND ON MICHIGAN TOWN FOR FIRST TRUMP RALLY SINCE FAILED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

One of the Beaver County snipers took pictures of Crooks and called into command about his suspicious presence at the venue – but the 20-year-old gunman was still able to position himself on the roof of the building, ABC reported.

Meanwhile, members of Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have questioned why they weren’t told that local police had spotted a suspicious person who turned out to be a would-be assassin.

Trump’s advisers thought that the sounds of shots, which they heard from a large white tent behind the stage, were fireworks, according to the Washington Post.

SECRET SERVICE WILL AMP UP SECURITY AT UPCOMING PENNSYLVANIA TRUMP RALLY DUE TO ‘COPYCAT’ FEARS: EXPERTS

Two advisers, who were not named by the outlet, said they did not understand why the alert had not been passed on so that they could consider delaying Trump’s speech, a sentiment the GOP nominee echoed in an interview with Fox News.

“Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” the former president said in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday. “They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes,’ something. Nobody said — I think that was a mistake.”

Beaver County Chief Detective Patrick Young, who runs the Emergency Services Unit and SWAT team, said the group “did everything humanly possible that day.”

“We talk a lot on SWAT that we as individuals mean nothing until we come together as a team,” Young said.

In a statement, the U.S. Secret Service wrote that “as it relates to communications on that day, we are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that it never happens again.”

“That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations,” the statement continued.

Original article source: Pennsylvania SWAT officer says team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting

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Pennsylvania

How Mizzou planted its flag in Pennsylvania recruiting

Published

7 hours ago

January 28, 2025

Press Room

How Mizzou planted its flag in Pennsylvania recruiting

Sitting together during an official visit weekend in June, Jack Abercrombie and Tim Taggart started talking about the next wave of Pennsylvania talent.

Missouri, which anchored in its 2025 signing class with signal caller Matt Zollers, wasn’t done looking east, and Taggart had just the guy for the Tigers’ assistant offensive line coach.

Taggart recommended jumping in on Maxwell Hiller, a 6-foot-6, 300-pound sophomore offensive tackle. Taggart, the quarterbacks coach at Wyndmoor (Pa.) La Salle College High School and personal coach of Zollers, is close friends with Vinnie Williams, the offensive coordinator at Coatesville (Pa.) Coatesville Area Senior, where Hiller plays.

“You guys got to get after him now,” Taggart said then. “I remember giving three or four of their coaches all of Max’s information.”

Abercrombie offered Hiller by late October and got him on campus to Missouri for the program’s Junior Day on Jan. 18. Hiller isn’t an under-the-radar talent, ranking No. 55 nationally in the Class of 2027, but the Tigers weren’t regulars in his home state until now.

“It shows that they have good recruiting to come out all this way from Missouri all the way to PA to recruit,” Hiller said in October. “So it’s definitely great to see.”

Abercrombie rejoined the Missouri staff ahead of the 2023 season after previously serving as an offensive graduate assistant in 2020-2021. He spent the prior two seasons as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator, for only 2022, at the Virginia Military Institute.

A native of Horsham, Pennsylvania, Abercrombie played and coached collegiately in his home state, and over the past decade and a half, those connections to Pennsylvania have bled into his ability to recruit the area.

“Jack Abercrombie, he’s definitely going to be an up-and-coming coach in the near future,” Taggart said.

Abercrombie knows two staffers at La Salle College High School well in offensive line coach Mark Schmidt and defensive line coach David Sowers. Schmidt and Sowers have built success at multiple stops in Pennsylvania, leaving fingerprints across the state in coaching and recruiting.

“Jack’s a big part,” Taggart said. “Not a lot of people understand these under-the-radar coaches, younger coaches, guys that are maybe lower-end assistances. They’re the ones that have a lot of the big-time relationships and connections.

“They do a lot of the dirty work behind the scenes, where they’re studying, watching all the film of all these guys, and they’re trying to find the diamonds in the rough. They’re trying to use their connections and everything, and it’s paying off big time for programs like Mizzou.”

The eastern half of Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, is where Missouri found Zollers as well as a trio of La Salle College High School players — Grayson McKeogh, Joey O’Brien and Gavin Sidwar.

Missouri offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Kirby Moore traveled to La Salle College High School on Tuesday to workout Sidwar, a Class of 2026 three-star quarterback, who received an offer from the Tigers after a conversation with Moore.

Moore told Sidwar he wanted to host him for a one-on-one visit this spring, making the quarterback the focal point for the Tigers in whatever weekend they decide to schedule a trip.

Missouri made it a point of emphasis to make offers more personal with players, getting on high school campuses to talk with recruits. The Tigers did that with Sidwar and McKeogh, another player Taggart put on Abercrombie’s radar this past summer.

“The thing that I think separates Missouri, apart from a lot of other programs that would be interested in kids from Pennsylvania, is the actual town,” Taggart said. “The school is located in the middle of the town, so that was one of the things for Matt. Matt saying this, ‘It feels like I’m back in Royersford, Pennsylvania.’”

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Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania teacher accused of calling Muslim student a 'terrorist' is put on leave

Published

18 hours ago

January 27, 2025

Press Room

Pennsylvania teacher accused of calling Muslim student a 'terrorist' is put on leave

A Pennsylvania middle school teacher has been placed on administrative leave, accused of calling a Muslim seventh grader a “terrorist.”

The incident is alleged to have taken place Jan. 16 at Central Dauphin Middle School in Harrisburg after the student asked the teacher to change seats, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, said in a news release.

“I do not negotiate with terrorists,” the teacher told the student, according to CAIR, which described the student as Palestinian Lebanese American.

Adam Rahman, the boy’s father, said at a news conference Monday evening that his son is doing “OK” but that the incident will “always resonate in his head” and he’ll “wonder if the next teacher will say the same thing.”

“He felt like the room was spinning and he was the only one and there was nobody to help him,” Rahman said. “These teachers are supposed to be the mentors, the people who you look up to, and if that fails, there’s nothing.”

The Central Dauphin School District said it was aware of the allegations that the teacher “made a derogatory comment” to the student during an after-school program at the middle school. It did not identify the educator.

The district said the allegation incident goes against the district’s values and the policies set for staff members.

“Central Dauphin School District has zero tolerance for hateful and racist speech, and we have launched an internal investigation into this matter,” it said in a statement. “While we cannot comment publicly on personnel matters, the teacher involved in the alleged incident is on administrative leave pending our investigation.”

Rahman said that it is not the first time his family has experienced “red flags” in the school district but that this was the “tipping point.”

“When teachers say it, that’s when I have to go to the school and confront this,” he said.

Rahman called for more education in geopolitics in the district so students can “learn more about different backgrounds, especially in the Middle East.”

Community leaders demanded cultural sensitivity and anti-bias curriculum and training at Monday’s news conference.

In a statement, the Harrisburg Palestine Coalition said what it described as the teacher’s “deeply embedded racism” may stem partly from “exposure to misinformation and war propaganda by mainstream news coverage of Palestine.”

“Central Dauphin School District must do more to ensure that education on Palestine is correctly taught in its classrooms,” the coalition said.

In a statement, CAIR’s Philadelphia branch called the incident a “racist, anti-Palestinian verbal assault” that made the teacher “unfit to teach any students.”

The district’s superintendent, Eric Turman, said Sunday that there was no update on the investigation to share.

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