Shooter Was Identified As a Threat 'Seconds Before Gunfire Started,' Reveals Cheatle

Washington: Secret Services Director Kimberly Cheatle revealed that the shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks who allegedly tried to shoot the former President of the US Donald Trump was identified as a threat 'seconds before gunfire started.'

Cheatle told GOP Rep. Russell Fry during a crucial Congressional hearing on Monday. Fry asked, “When did Crooks transform from suspicion to threat?" Cheatle said, "I believe that it was seconds before the gunfire started."

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday appointed a bipartisan, independent panel to review the assassination attempt on Trump.

The panel members will have “extensive law enforcement and security experience to conduct a 45-day independent review of the planning for and actions taken by the U.S. Secret Service and state and local authorities before, during, and after the rally, and the US Secret Service governing policies and procedures,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The first people named to the panel are former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush; Mark Filip, a former federal judge and deputy attorney general to President George W. Bush; and David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the state of Delaware.

Additional experts could be asked to join the group in the coming days, the statement said.

The panel will have 45 days to review the policies and procedures of the Secret Service before, during and after the rally on July 13 where a gunman fired at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We formed this bipartisan group to quickly identify improvements the U.S. Secret Service can implement to enhance their work. We must all work together to ensure events like July 13 do not happen again," members of the independent review panel said in a joint statement. Cheatle said she welcomed the review.

“I look forward to the panel examining what happened and providing recommendations to help ensure it will never happen again,” Cheatle said in a statement Sunday. “The U.S. Secret Service is continuing to take steps to review our actions internally and remain committed to working quickly and transparently with other investigations, including those by Congress, FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.”

Cheatle is set to testify Monday before the House Oversight Committee. (with AP inputs)