Seth Magaziner Urges Colleagues To ‘Remove Violent Rhetoric' In The Wake Of The Trump Shooting

3 months ago

On Tuesday, Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) questioned the PA State Police Commissioner Colonel Christopher L. Paris on the investigation into the Trump Rally shooting during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00Now is Mr. Magaziner for five minutes. Thank you Mr. Chairman and first I just want to join

00:06my colleagues from both sides of the aisle earlier who recognize the tremendous legacy

00:12of our colleague Sheila Jackson Lee who you know I feel very fortunate to have had even

00:19just a year and a half to work with on this committee. She always came prepared, she was

00:22diligent, she brought empathy and was a great example to us newer members so I'm very grateful.

00:30For her legacy and I know it will live on for a long time to come and I also join my

00:35colleagues on both sides in condemning the assassination attempt on former President

00:40Trump and condemn all acts of violence. Violence is not the answer. Our condolences go out to the

00:47family of Corey Comparatore and all who were injured and traumatized by what occurred that

00:54day and you know I think about the children who were at that event and had to witness that

00:58and that is something they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

01:03We don't know the motivation of the shooter at this time but I remain concerned by the rising

01:09tide of political violence and domestic violent extremism in this country which impacts all of us.

01:16This is something that some of us have been talking about a lot in this committee.

01:19In 2023 the U.S. Capitol Police investigated more than 8,000 cases of direct threats

01:25against members of Congress, a tenfold increase from 2015 and so I ask everyone

01:33take down the rhetoric, remove violent rhetoric from our political discourse,

01:38remember as President Lincoln said that we are not enemies but friends and we have to appeal to

01:42the better angels of our nature and yes we have to make sure that this never happens again.

01:48It is welcome news that the Director of the Secret Service has resigned but if we

01:53say that that is enough then we're not doing our jobs. We need to understand what protocols,

01:59policies, resources need to be changed if any to make sure this does not happen again. Colonel I

02:06wanted to ask I imagine the Pennsylvania State Police deals with lots of events like this right

02:11you have lots of political events, big events, Secret Service protectees who come in and out

02:16of Pennsylvania so can you just help us understand is it unusual to have such a

02:24small perimeter around an outdoor event like this one? I would say that we routinely as a matter of

02:35course exercise deference to the Secret Service to set the perimeter for an event like this based

02:41on the protectee. Yeah I think it's important to note that Pennsylvania is a state where anyone

02:4718 and above can carry a firearm like an AR-15 without a license it's an open carry state and so

02:56my second question is outside of that perimeter were there any controls in place or any you know

03:06legal tools that you had at your disposal if an individual with a firearm had been spotted

03:12again within 300 400 yards of the former president? I would defer to the Secret Service I haven't seen

03:19their operations plan sir. Right but you as State Police and then also the Butler local police

03:24who were responsible for areas outside of the perimeter you know if and if this individual

03:30had been spotted earlier with a firearm because it is an open carry state what legal tools would

03:36you have had at your disposal? So we would have responded and and attempted to make contact and

03:41ascertain what the person was doing there and what their activity was. Yeah so a number of us

03:48have asked questions about lines of communication and I think that's important right because

03:53to the lay person at home what we're trying to understand is if this individual was spotted on

03:58the roof you know as he appears to have been well over a minute before the shooting did the

04:03local officers who spotted him know how to radio into the command center was that information

04:10relayed and then was it in turn relayed to the Secret Service? This question has been asked a

04:16few different times but can you tell the public what you know about whether local officers outside

04:21the perimeter knew how to radio in as you know a suspected threat whether there was an individual

04:30in the command center who was receiving those those calls and communicating them to the Secret Service?

04:35So I do know that Butler County set up a command post on the site itself along with the Secret

04:43Service's command post but they were not located in the same building. The exact communication

04:48between municipal officers and that command post or the county dispatch that they would rely on the

04:54state police have our own statewide dispatching we can communicate with the dispatching centers

05:00telephonically and through electronic means but we maintain separate dispatching systems so I would

05:05defer to the locals I'm sorry so the locals were not included in the Secret Service command center

05:11the state police was or was not? The PSP I can assure you the PSP was in there yeah additional

05:16people I was briefed on one occasion that there was a representative from Butler ESU that was in

05:23there when they were in there and the length is not really a focus at this point of our

05:28investigation into the homicide and attempted two homicides as well as the officer involved

05:33shooting so those sequence that sequence of events has come up pursuant to us investigating that but

05:41I am very remiss to give you a minute by minute timeline and what the communications were.

Seth Magaziner Urges Colleagues To ‘Remove Violent Rhetoric' In The Wake Of The Trump Shooting

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