Ed Lenz is quoted dropping some gems in this TribLive.com article, further discrediting SS.
(1) “According to Adams Township Sgt. Ed Lenz, who serves as commander of the Butler County ESU, four snipers met with the Secret Service’s countersniper team leader to confirm their locations — which were discussed that morning among ESU members — around 1:54 p.m.”
“Expectations of local law enforcement were communicated clearly leading up to the rally by the Secret Service’s countersniper and counterassault team leaders and at an informational meeting the week before the rally.”
→ So it was SS who defined and then confirmed local ESU locations. It was not that there was some miscommunication, and maybe ESUs were supposed to be on the roofs of AGR.
(2) “Lenz said there were two command posts: the Secret Service’s command post included state police. Butler County ESU’s command was stationed at the county post with Butler County Sheriff’s deputies.”
“Lenz said he had a portable radio for the state police, who would relay messages to the Secret Service.”
→ This discredits Ron Rowe’s claim that lack of unified command was the culprit for SS not to know what was going on in a timely manner. State PA embed got immediate radio messages and was inside SS command, able to relay fast. It’s possible that the PA state police embed, or SS command itself, was sabotaging the passing of information to SS snipers.
(3) “Time stamps from text messages released by Grassley show that at 5:38 p.m., a Beaver County sniper sent photos of Crooks to the Beaver, Butler and Washington snipers group chat. The photos were forwarded to state police, Lenz said. Shortly after, at 5:48 p.m., Lenz said a sniper team leader forwarded the photos to a Secret Service countersniper.”
→ So both PA State (the embed presumably) and SS sniper team leader got the picture.
(4) “Nobody sees him again till he’s already on the building,” Lenz said. “At 6:08 p.m., Butler Township spots him on the roof for the first time.”
“Looking at some videos, you can see the (Secret Service) countersnipers got the information,” he said. “They reposition. They change their focus toward that AGR building. Countersnipers can’t take action just for a suspicious person.”
→ Lenz’s testimony suggests that when SS countersnipers turned from facing southward to northward, just after 6:10:00, Crooks had become a threat rather than remained a mere suspect. This implies that SS failed to take out Crooks in time although he was a known threat to them. Did they not see him behind the sloped roof, or did they LIHOP?
(5) "At 6:11 p.m., Lenz said radio transmission indicated Crooks was armed and lying down on the roof.
“I had a bunch of different radios,” Lenz said.
“As soon as they confirm that he’s armed, (Crooks) changed from a suspicious person to an actual threat,” he said.
“I begin to deploy the quick response force,” he said. “They’re contacted on the radio, they answer. I start giving orders to deploy to the AGR roof.”"
→ So Lenz put out over several radios that boosted cop had seen Crooks with a rifle. He surely relayed this to the PA State police embed, who was in SS command. Southern SS snipers for a minute already were focused toward AGR, though they were not told by SS command that Crooks was on the roof of AGR 6 specifically.
All this paints Lenz as a fast communicator to SS, and SS as fully responsible for the failures to stick ESUs behind windows, cover AGR roofs, pass on local comms with full detail.
