By Tom Knights, Manager, Butler Township
10 minutes before the shooting. Photo: Wikipedia
On July 13, 2024, an assassination attempt was made on the life of then-former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally held in Butler, PA. The attempt took the life of one attendee and wounded several others including the President while being broadcast live nationally. The immediate aftermath had law enforcement officers from all levels trying to determine if any co-conspirators were involved as thousands of rally attendees were trying to leave the grounds and media was attempting to enter the same grounds.
There is no reference source to guide anyone through an assassination attempt, and I certainly hope no municipality will be thrust into the international spotlight due to a senseless and intolerable act of political violence. I do want to provide some lessons that Butler Township learned from this experience.
Media Policy
Butler Township has a long-standing media policy where the Township Manager is the source of contact for media. All information comes to and is disseminated from the manager. I encourage all municipalities to adopt some type of media policy so that communication is clear and not by committee. In this particular case, all Butler Township law enforcement assigned to traffic duty but ultimately thrust into searching for a person of interest became part of the investigation. During the first 24 hours after the attempt, “local law enforcement” became the focal point of criticism while federal agencies dominated media attention. That criticism was further elevated by other agencies pointing out that while the grounds themselves were in a neighboring municipality, both the building used as the shooter’s vantage point and the location of the stage were both within Butler Township. After having the time to review officers’ accounts, the duty assignments, supporting information and briefing the Commissioners, I made myself available to media armed with facts to represent Butler Township and the township’s law enforcement response.
Media
As a result of being exposed to media on an international level, I have a very unique opinion regarding media. Regarding a lesson to share – that would be speak to the facts, do not speculate and do not give opinion. Be a boring interview. Regarding the reality – media is absolutely relentless. During the first week following the assassination attempt, anywhere from 20-30 media vehicles from various outlets would spend the day and night in our municipal building parking lot. They would wait for the municipal building to open to try and get access to police and myself, then travel the short mile and a half to the site and stay there all day trying to report on anything new occurring there and then return to our parking lot to compile the day’s news. A full week. The phones rang off the hook during that same time period by the same media. Media found my home address and would park there during various times of the day and particularly early evening trying to get access. A couple of my neighbors would give me the “all clear” message when they left so I could sneak home. Media called my parents trying to get new contact methods for me. Relentless. Once the first interview was conducted the flood gates were opened. In addition to all national news outlets, I did interviews with media from the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Germany. I even had an interview with an unknown Eastern European country who referred to me as comrade. And never doubt that local media will claim bias if they are not given some time also – trust me. And of course there are consequences to media exposure.
Death Threats and Hate Mail
Tons of them. Every interview that aired brought a flurry of hate emails. And both sides of the spectrum were equally represented. Occasionally one encouraging email mixed in, but they were rare. People were passionately angry. And I think because there were so many governmental levels being interviewed and initially the investigation generated more questions than answers, viewers were left to formulate their own conclusions before the facts caught up. Obviously, I will not go into detail regarding the content of the messages I received. And right or wrong, I did not give them credibility. I certainly do not condone that behavior but made assumptions that people who were frustrated by the process had a new face to vent their anger towards. Only lesson I can convey from this is when emotions are running high, you will receive negativity and need to be confident in yourself.
Act 22
If you have a police department and do not have body cameras, that is a different conversation to have. If you have a police department with body cameras and do not have a good understanding of Act 22, you need to. Act 22 governs the release of body camera video. It is commonly spoken in the same context as the Freedom of Information Act, but that is not a valid comparison. Active investigation does not impact Act 22 requests. And national media knows this. I received 42 Act 22 requests in the first 48 hours following the shooting. All wanting body worn camera video from the event. Important to note that Butler Township police were the only law enforcement agency with all officers having body cameras. See first sentence above. If you deny an Act 22 request, the appeal goes to the Court of Common Pleas, not the Office of Open Records. National media certainly knows this, and local media most likely does also. In reviewing cases of Act 22 at that time, municipal denials had a bad track record of successfully defending their denial. National media pressure most likely would have made the appeal even less likely to succeed. After briefing the Township Commissioners in advance, I made a decision to release the police body camera video from the event to all 42 requestors at the same time. No one got an exclusive. The next day, the phones were quiet, no hate emails, no random media outlets walking through the door. Became yesterday’s news. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is worth a million. Lesson learned here is to give your officers the tools they need to defend the job they do.
I hope the items I have spoken of helps anyone who has an event that has some level of exposure – even if it is, think at least, I am not that guy from Butler Township. If anyone needs tips on how to handle being interviewed in a dimly lit hotel room by various national security agencies, I can tell those stories at a different venue. But the relevance I wanted to provide is lessons learned on the biggest stage that have merit locally.
Article from the June 2026 Municipal Reporter | Tourism
