WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 In many ways, the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign stop was a\u00a0perfect storm of failings\u00a0coming together that allowed 20-year-old Michael Thomas Crooks to climb on top of a nearby building and take eight shots at the once and future president.<\/p>\n
One attendee was killed, two others wounded and a bullet grazed Trump\u2019s ear before a Secret Service counter sniper opened fire on Crooks and killed him. That day jolted an already chaotic race for the White House and\u00a0solidified Trump\u2019s iconic status\u00a0in his party and beyond.<\/p>\n
WATCH:<\/strong> Secret Service director says agency is \u2018reorganizing\u2019 at House hearing on Trump assassination attempt<\/a><\/p>\n It also became a turning point for the agency tasked with protecting the president. As more details emerged about what went wrong, questions multiplied: What happened to the Secret Service\u2019s planning? Why was a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump left unguarded? What motivated the shooter?<\/p>\n Another\u00a0incident in September\u00a0where a gunman camped in the shrubbery outside one of Trump\u2019s golf courses before being spotted and shot at by a Secret Service agent also raised questions about the agency\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n A year after Butler, multiple investigations have detailed the breakdowns that day. Under a new leader hired by Trump, the agency has been pushing to address those problems but key questions remain.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a wake-up call for the Secret Service,\u201d said retired supervisory agent Bobby McDonald, who\u2019s now a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven.<\/p>\n A Senate committee and federal auditing agency over the weekend released reports about the Secret Service\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a look at what went wrong, what\u2019s been done to address problems and the questions still unanswered.<\/p>\n How\u2019d he get on that roof? Who was talking to who?<\/p>\n All the investigations zeroed in on a few specific problems.<\/p>\n The building with a clear sight line to the stage where the president was speaking only 135 meters (157 yards) away was left unguarded. Crooks eventually boosted himself up there and fired eight shots with an AR-style rifle.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Secret Service\u2019s investigation\u00a0into its own agency\u2019s conduct said that it wasn\u2019t that the line-of-sight risks weren\u2019t known about ahead of time. It was that multiple personnel assessed them as \u201cacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Supervisors had expected large pieces of farm equipment would be situated to block the view from the building. Those ultimately weren\u2019t placed, and staffers who visited the site before the rally didn\u2019t tell their supervisors that the line-of-sight concerns hadn\u2019t been addressed, the report said.<\/p>\n Another glaring problem: fragmented communications between the Secret Service and the local law enforcement that the agency regularly relies on to secure events.<\/p>\n Instead of having one unified command post with representatives from every agency providing security in the same room, there were two command posts at the rally. One investigation described a \u201cchaotic mixture\u201d of radio, cell phone, text, and email used to communicate that day.<\/p>\n And a year later, the investigations are still coming.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were multiple, unacceptable failures in the planning and execution of the July 13 Butler rally,\u201d said the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs\u00a0in a report released Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n The committee found that the agency denied \u201cmultiple requests for additional staff, assets, and resources to protect President Trump\u201d during the presidential campaign. The committee said that included at least two requests for the Butler rally.<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s former director, Kim Cheatle, last year told a House panel before she resigned that the agency didn\u2019t deny any requests for the rally.<\/p>\n In a statement released Sunday in response to the Senate report, Cheatle said, \u201cFor the Butler rally, I actually did direct additional assets to be provided, particularly in the form of agency countersnipers.\u201d<\/p>\n