Secret Service will amp up security at upcoming Pennsylvania Trump rally due to 'copycat' fears: experts

Former President  Donald Trump is slated to speak in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, about 200 miles from the venue where an attempt was made on his life earlier this month. Experts tell Fox News Digital that security measures will be "amped up" in light of scrutiny facing the U.S. Secret Service and the potential for a "copycat" killer.

"You have the expression 'copycats.' They say, ‘Look at the attention that [would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks] got,’ and they say, 'I want that attention,'" Kevin Maloy, a former special agent with the State Department, told Fox News Digital.

"I'm sure the Secret Service have amped up their efforts because, you know, you do have the fear a little bit of a copycat out there. He got that close to ultimate success that easily – maybe I could do something," he continued.

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Gene Petrino, who served as the SWAT commander for Florida's Plantation Police Department for 26 years and is an expert on active shooter incidents, told Fox News Digital that there is "always a concern for copycat shooters," and that "a recent attack would most definitely tighten the security risk and response."

The fear of another attempt isn't unfounded. Within the three weeks before John F. Kennedy Jr. was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald, there had been assassination plots against him thwarted in Chicago and Miami, according to interviews with former Secret Service agents conducted by CBS Miami and ABC Chicago

The GOP nominee will take the stage at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg, which has over one million square feet of indoor floor space, according to its website.

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Pennsylvania State and Capitol Police will assist the Secret Service in securing the venue, State Police told Fox News Digital, while the local Harrisburg Police Department will cover traffic control surrounding the venue.

"You would think that [an indoor venue] would be easier to secure," said Maloy, who protected former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of State John Kerry. "But the potential size of the crowd jammed into the space, especially after the Butler event, could pose its own concerns with visibility."

Security sweeps of the stadium have likely already taken place or are underway, Maloy said, to determine potential security vulnerabilities and locations where a weapon or explosive could potentially be stashed. 

"We have already seen a big difference in [Trump's] security detail at the RNC. For his rally, I would expect to see the same thing," Petrino said. "I think you will see more distance between Trump and the crowd, and a wide pathway as he approaches the stage. I would be shocked if there weren't drones providing aerial coverage, multiple sniper teams covering multiple angles, and even K-9 teams." 

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"I think he will not spend a lot of time getting on and off stage," Petrino added.

Arriving and departing a venue are "one of the most vulnerable times for a protectee," Maloy said, because their timing and movement are predictable. 

"You want to consider alternatives to that main entrance – an underground parking lot, a back or side door, something with a back or side view," Maloy said. "If you can't do that, you want to tent the area so that you can obscure vision to that area."

Inside the venue, Maloy noted that there are catwalks, balconies and boxed seating that could be ideal vantage points for a potential shooter, and said that "access to these area should be controlled." The maintenance catwalks, he said, would be an ideal position for Secret Service counter snipers. 

He also noted that an evacuation strategy for the former president will be laid out, with a motorcade ready for him outside in the event that another assassination attempt takes place. 

The close call in Butler, Maloy said, was either caused by "incompetency or complacency" within the Secret Service, but that since then, he has "[seen] lessons learned from the Butler incident."

"Their pride was not only dinged, it was hammered," Maloy said of the Secret Service. "They are a professional agency, overall. Everyone stole the Secret Service's protection book."

"Whether it was incompetence on some individuals or a series of individuals or complacency setting in, I don't know the answer to that – that's what everyone is trying to figure out," he continued.

Israel airstrike hits Gaza shelter, leaving 30 dead

Israeli airstrikes hit a school being used by displaced people in central Gaza on Saturday, killing dozens of people, as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet international mediators to discuss a proposed cease-fire.

At least 30 people sheltering at a girls' school in Deir Al-Balah were taken to Al Aqsa Hospital and pronounced dead after a strike that Israel's military said targeted a Hamas command and control center used to store weapons and plan attacks.

Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 11 people had been killed in other strikes on Saturday.

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Near the hospital, Associated Press journalists saw an ambulance rushing through a dusty road as a few people ran in the opposite direction. An injured man lay on a stretcher on the ground. A body covered with a blanket and a dead toddler lay inside the ambulance.

Inside the school, classrooms were in ruins. People were seen searching for victims under the rubble and some were gathering remains of those who were killed.

Earlier, Israel's military ordered the evacuation of a part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday.

The evacuation order was in response to rocket fire that Israel said originated from the area. The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge throughout the war.

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The planned strike comes a day before officials from the U.S., Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy to discuss the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel on Sunday, according to officials from the U.S. and Egypt who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the plans.

It’s the second evacuation order issued in a week that has included striking part of the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.

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According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians are currently sheltering there after being uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign. In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was "not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other" in Gaza.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order because those sheltering under there were constantly being displaced.

"Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don’t do any justice to what this means," said Juliette Touma, the agency's director of communications. "These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move."

Further north, Palestinians mourned the deaths of seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza. Members of two families — parents and their two children as well as a mother and her two children — were wrapped in traditional Islamic white burial shrouds as community members gathered to perform funeral rights. As men lined up to pray in front of the bodies, weeping friends and neighbors approached individually to pay their final respects.

Deir al-Balah’s Al Aqsa hospital confirmed the count and Associated Press journalists saw the bodies.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The U.N. estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.

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