The police department that serves the township where former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt over the weekend has not had a chief for at least a month.
News of the leadership vacuum comes as experts and officials call for investigations into the communications failures between local, state, and federal agents that allowed a shooter to hit Trump, kill one rally attendee and injure at least two others.
Former Butler Township Police Department Chief John Hays retired last month, both Hays and a department administrator told The Intercept. There is no acting chief, but Lieutenant Matthew Pearson is the current head of the department. The department, which employs around 20 people, did not immediately respond to a request for further information about the absence of a chief.
Amid reports that Secret Service agents manning the event were asleep, negligent, or both, the lack of communication between various local, state, and federal agencies likely placed disproportionate responsibility on local police, said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia University Law School who studies policing.
“Local cops were left to shoulder the burden of security without much help from any federal agency, whether Secret Service or the FBI or anyone else,” he said. “They should have yelled for help, and so should the county government leaders.”
The shooting has raised new questions in the debate over police funding, gun control, and how well officers can be expected to handle active shooters, regardless of resources and training.
Similar questions plagued officials in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, after police on the scene refused to enter the building, even after receiving training, first reported by The Intercept, to put themselves in harm’s way to stop active shooters,
A head of department would normally take ultimate responsibility for answering such questions. Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo was recently indicted for his actions on the day, including the failure to follow the training.
“There should have been a protocol in place for coordination between the acting head of the local police and the federal agencies,” said Fagan. “Or the County Executive and that person’s designee. But it’s nuts for the Secret Service to delegate any aspect of presidential or former presidential security to the local police regardless.”
Law enforcement agencies’ failures on Saturday undermines the notion of perfect security, said Alex Vitale, professor and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York.
“There is no world where if we just assign enough police, we will eliminate all risk,” Vitale said.
Why and how there was a profound breakdown in communication between local police and state and federal agents needs scrutiny, Vitale added. It appears that local police were made aware of the shooter, took some inadequate action to neutralize the shooter, but did not successfully communicate to the Secret Service, he said, and the Secret Service may not have communicated their plans clearly to local police.
“A breakdown in communication could be because of inadequate command and control procedures at the local police level.”
“Did the local police fail to make certain kinds of procedures or equipment available to their officers to ensure this communication?” Vitale said. “Or was it just in the heat of the moment, local cops thought they could handle it without bothering the Secret Service, and clearly they couldn’t handle it? We’d want to know who’s in charge of the local police and what the plan of the day was.”
“A breakdown in communication could be because of inadequate command and control procedures at the local police level.”
Blame Game
The tiny Butler Township Police Department was one of several law enforcement agencies on the grounds at the rally on Saturday where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks killed one attendee and injured at least two other people.
Secret Service agents were also on the scene and their failure to prevent the shooting has prompted calls for an investigation into the agency.
With accusations flying, experts and responding agents have pointed the finger at each other.
Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe described the response to the shooting as a security failure, but did not blame any single agency. He also defended a Butler Township police officer who encountered Crooks just before the shooting took place and retreated after he pointed his rifle at him. (The sheriff’s office and Butler Township Board of Commissioners President Jim Lokhaiser Jr. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
Reached for comment, former Butler Township Police Chief John Hays said his last day at the department was June 14. “I really don’t have much information other than what I’m reading in the paper or hearing on the news,” he said.
Local police, Vitale said, should not be the only ones bearing blame for the communication breakdown. Instead of trying to pinpoint responsibility, he said, the broader problem lies in the idea that policing is politically neutral and that it can produce perfect public safety.
“The fear of risk is weaponized by those who want to both gain political advantage by promising a risk-free future that they know they can’t deliver on,” Vitale said. “Those folks will weaponize the security apparatus to serve their political interests rather than producing any true, broad-based security for people.”
“Those security services,” he said, “their first overriding job will be the neutralization of their political enemies, whether it’s grassroots movements, or whatever.”
Pennsylvania lawmakers have long stymied legislation to strengthen gun laws in the state, even while decrying gun violence. Earlier this year, state lawmakers fought a ban on the gun used in the assassination attempt.
In Congress, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., who represents the district, has voted against efforts to pass an assault weapons ban. (Kelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
The Butler County Sheriff’s office is currently advertising a basic handgun safety class and services to apply for or renew licenses to carry concealed firearms. According to its website, the office was accepting applications to carry weapons on the day of the shooting.