Less than 150 metres appear to have separated former US president Donald Trump, his would-be assassin and the Secret Service shooters who took him out.
Authorities said the agents shot Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, after he fired from “an elevated position outside the rally venue”, hitting Trump in the ear, killing one rally attendee and injuring two others on Saturday afternoon (Sunday morning AEST).
A video posted to social media and geolocated by the Associated Press shows the body of a person wearing grey camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc, a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show Grounds where Trump’s rally was held.
READ MORE: Trump rally attendee dead, two others critical in suspected assassination attempt
The roof where the person lay was less than 150 metres from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target.
Based on its own analysis, CNN put the distance at roughly 120 to 150 metres.
From that distance, US Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle, the military equivalent of the civilian AR-15 the shooter at the Trump rally had.
Photos taken by CNN Security showed what appeared to be the Secret Service counter snipers on rooftops at the rally.
Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. An AP reporter at the scene reported the noise sounded like firecrackers at first or perhaps a car backfiring.
Police soon told the people remaining to leave the venue and Secret Service agents told reporters to get “out now”.
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“This is a live crime scene,” they said.
The Secret Service is investigating how the gunman was able to get so close to the former president.
Asked at a press conference whether law enforcement did not know the shooter was on the roof until he began firing, Kevin Rojek, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, responded that “that is our assessment at this time”.
“It is surprising” that the gunman was able to open fire on the stage before the Secret Service killed him, he added.
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Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said an investigation would allow authorities to “take a look at where any failures occurred and what can be done better in the future”.
“In their defence,” Bivens added, “it is incredibly difficult to have a venue open to the public and secure that against any possible threat against a very determined attacker”.
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