Notably, the shooter’s location was
outside the security perimeter, raising questions about both the size of the perimeter and efforts to sweep and secure the American Glass Research building, and how the shooter was able to obtain rooftop access.
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BUTLER, Pa. — Two women who watched
former President Donald Trump’s rally Saturday from a neighboring property described what they called lax safety measures beyond the event’s security perimeter.
Valerie Fennell and Deb Kuminkoski had tickets to go to the rally, but, because of the heat and the large crowd, they decided to hang back and watch from Fennell’s backyard, which backs up to the area where the rally was held.
Fennell’s backyard is in a grassy area between where the Trump crowd gathered and the AGR factory where the
shooter was perched on the roof of one of the buildings, about 150 yards away.
Because she lives so close to where the event was held, Fennell said, she was expecting authorities to contact her, to even knock on her door, in the lead-up to the rally. She thought they might set up a security station on her property because it’s so close by.
That call never came, and Saturday, she said, she was looking around the area to see where security had set up but didn’t see anybody.
Instead, the entire area just outside the event’s perimeter was open and people were walking around freely within 150 yards of where Trump was speaking with no security visible, they said.
Fennell said that there “might have been” two or three police cars, as well as local police, parked nearby but that she didn’t see them stopping anybody who walked nearby.
Valerie Fennell lives on a property between where the Trump rally was held and the building from which the shooter fired before he was killed.
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