ABC News: "Building where Trump rally gunman perched on roof was police tactical team staging area"

Would-be assassin hid in plain sight

ABC News is reporting that the building on which the gunman (identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks) perched when he shot at Trump was the “police tactical staging area” for the providing event security.

The report makes the following strange assertions (my emphasis in bold).

ABC News learned the building was the same building a local police tactical team was using as a staging area to watch over the crowd at the Butler Farm Show grounds.

It is unclear if the team was inside the building, which sources said had been swept before the rally. Investigators are still working to learn if the roof was locked down.

According to a source who spoke with ABC News, Crooks did not use a ladder to get access to the roof.

Officials said an officer was "vaulted" up to the roof after rallygoers called attention to Crooks, who then turned and aimed his gun at the officer.

AP reported the officer retreated down the ladder and Crooks turned around and began shooting.

Note that none of the above makes any sense.

1). Though the building (with a parking lot, located just north of event) was indeed a logical place for a police staging ground, its single most valuable feature for the purpose “to watch over the crowd” was its roof. Why were no police posted on its roof?

2). Obviously the roof was NOT locked down, or else Crooks could not have accessed it in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses who noticed him on the roof while he crawled up to the roof ridge to rest his rifle and shoot at Trump.

3). The part about the officer being “vaulted” up to the roof sounds like something Inspector Clouseau would do. After being “vaulted” up to the roof, why did the officer then “retreat down the ladder”?

4). If Crooks turned his rifle on the police officer who was “vaulted” onto the roof, why didn’t the counter-sniper—who was watching Crooks through his scope—shoot Crooks then? That is, why did the counter-sniper wait for Crooks to return his aim away from the vaulting police officer and back at Trump for long enough to fire at Trump?

Note that the barn roof on which the counter-snipers were positioned was higher than the low roof on which the would-be assassin was perched. From their vantage point, they could see Crooks well enough to hit him with a fatal head shot. Why did they wait for him to fire first?

Something tells me our mainstream media is not going to pursue answers to these questions with much rigor.