This is not true, Ron Rowe is equivocating, misleading.
Ron Johnson’s timeline makes clear that local LEO did communicate to a SS sniper:
“5:45pm—A sniper with Butler County sends the images and description given by AGR sniper 1 of Crooks to one of the Secret Service counter snipers at the rally, including that Crooks was seen using a rangefinder in the direction of the rally stage.
o The Secret Service counter sniper responds, “Roger. I’ll notify teams on AGR side.”
o Acting Director Rowe confirms the Butler County sniper sends the Secret Service counter sniper team leader a text with the images and description of Crooks.4”
Further, Rowe himself acknowledged the receipt by SS of the picture and description of Crooks at 5:45 pm.
So when Ron Rowe claims there was no “unified command,” while this may technically be true, it misleads in suggesting that local LEO could not communicate with SS. They could and did, and Rowe knew they did when he made this statement about lack of unified command.
Further, local LEO gave - not just offered - Secret Service radios with the right frequencies to be used on the day of the rally. Secret Service claims it never used the radios.
Lastly, Rowe speaks as if the lack of unified command was just happenstance. He is hoping we buy the “incompetence” excuse. We can dismiss this out of basic principle. No, it is the responsibility of the SS to protect its protectee, and this entails relying on local assets and their ability to communicate. Wherever SS goes, it must have a protocol to establish local LEO’s ability to communicate effectively - this is not the local LEOs’ responsibility. So the lack of unified command is not happenstance, but criminal negligence.
In the particular case of the Butler rally, we can dismiss Rowe’s attempt at “incompetence” by the facts, more importantly, not just principles. Local LEO gave SS radios, SS chose not to use them. Local LEO wanted an embed in SS command; SS refused. Local LEO wanted a morning review of plans with SS; SS did not show up. Despite these SS efforts to block communication with local LEO, local LEO did manage to send a photo and description of Crooks by phone to a SS sniper at 5:45 pm; for Rowe to allege there was no "unified command as an excuse is to omit all the prior blocking and suggest this key info was not received?
Then SS sniper team leader waited 8 minutes to pass this information to SS snipers - this slow communication to SS snipers was by SS choice. And the information was passed in a slow and distracting way - by email. And it was generic, maybe not even including a picture or description of Crooks:
“5:53pm—According to Acting Director Rowe, the Secret Service counter sniper team leader emails the Secret Service counter sniper teams that “local law enforcement [is] looking for a suspicious individual outside the perimeter, ‘lurking around the AGR building’.”5”
SS sabotaged the receipt of information from local LEO (by not using radios provided) and refusing an embed in SS command; when some info from local LEO did seep through to SS (via private phone) despite all the SS obstruction, SS delayed and diluted the information when it did pass it to the SS snipers.
“Lack of unified command” is a misdirection! Let us not get into a discussion of
- “how is this possible”
- “this is how it should have been done”
- “how come national importance events are different from candidate rallies in communication protocols”
To get into those discussions is to accept the false premise that “unified command” was a prerequisite to thwart the assassination attempt. It was not. SS needed only to turn on the radios given to it by local LEO that day (as well as accept the local LEO’s offer for local LEO to fly a drone); to pass on information it did receive to SS snipers more quickly and fully.
The real failure was that SS command and SS sniper team leader handicapped SS snipers by choice.
