JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
There is growing evidence of the seriousness of the security breakdown in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated. Multiple people on the scene have said they spotted the gunman on a roof outside the event and tried to alert police. NPR's law enforcement correspondent, Martin Kaste, joins us to talk about the security implications of the Trump rally shooting. Hey, Martin.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: So it's been about 48 hours now. What have we learned about how the gunman was able to come so close to assassinating former President Trump?
KASTE: Well, we'd already been hearing these reports about people spotting the gunman on the roof before he started shooting. Now there's a video circulating on social media. This is a video that NPR has not independently verified, but it appears to show that happening. So the big question here is how was a man with a rifle allowed to get up there? This building is about 400 feet from the stage. It's outside the perimeter where people were being checked for weapons, but that roof should still have been secured, at least that's what retired Secret Service agent Kerry O'Grady told me.
KERRY OGRADY: Elementary, dear Watson. That is an absolute breakdown. It's 100% failure to secure the location. They might not be inside, but it's still penetrating your perimeter. Your perimeter isn't just what you see with the people inside. Your perimeter is everything that can cause threat to you.
SUMMERS: Martin, we know that the roof was in range of Secret Service snipers. They shot the gunman after he opened fire. But - I mean, this might be a basic question, but should there have been an agent on that roof?
KASTE: Well, not necessarily a Secret Service agent. When it comes to restricting access to buildings outside an event perimeter, that's often left to local law enforcement, according to O'Grady. And I should note here that she left the Secret Service after it came out that she'd criticized Trump on social media in 2016. But before that, she'd been a special agent in charge in Colorado when it was a swing state, and that means she worked on a lot of these political events.
OGRADY: During campaigns, the agents are so busy and spread so thin - and very quick venues that the campaign might give them two to three days at times. They can do it because they have a playbook for it. But where it gets really taxing is on the local resources.
KASTE: And local resources often means a small-town police department. It might be paying overtime to officers who are doing these events with the Secret Service. And the federal government doesn't reimburse them for that. So O'Grady says doing this often - getting this kind of help often means some delicate local diplomacy.
SUMMERS: Right. And, of course, this is all happening as the Republican National Convention is getting started in Milwaukee today, where Donald Trump has now officially become the Republican nominee for president. Has this at all changed security plans for that?
KASTE: Well, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said today that personnel and other protective resources, as he puts it, have been added for the convention, along with enhancements in Trump's security detail. Earlier, the director of the Secret Service said she was confident in the plans for Milwaukee, which she called a dynamic set of plans and based on the latest intelligence.
SUMMERS: What can you tell us about what the security situation in Milwaukee looks like?
KASTE: Well, they brought in about 4,000 extra police. The whole thing is designated a national special security event, which allows for a fenced-off inner perimeter where people are checked for weapons. There's also an outer security perimeter where vehicles are checked and protests can take place. And there is some controversy over the fact that guns will be allowed in this outer security zone. Yesterday, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said the police there are bound to respect Wisconsin's laws that allow for open and concealed carrying of firearms, even in that outside security zone.
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JEFFREY NORMAN: As that is your right, please exercise your right in a responsible manner. The Milwaukee Police Department will not tolerate any particular behaviors outside of what is legally allowed in regards to that right.
SUMMERS: I want to just look ahead for a moment if we can. How is this or how might this affect security for the rest of this political campaign season?
KASTE: Well, Secretary Mayorkas says there will be an independent review. They're hoping that'll happen quickly so they can take corrective actions based on what they find. There will also be unspecified enhancements to the security of the president and vice president, and the Secret Service will now provide protection to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., something they hadn't been doing before, given what happened in Pennsylvania.
SUMMERS: That's NPR's Martin Kaste. Martin, thank you.
KASTE: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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