Security experts and former Secret Service agents are raising doubts about the agency’s explanations for the security failures surrounding the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday.

New information from official sources and media leaks is prompting tough questions about security lapses that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to get within shooting range of Trump. A critical focus is on the roles assigned to local police, as confirmed by U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in an ABC News interview on Monday. Cheatle noted that while local officers were positioned inside the building from which the gunman fired, none were assigned to the rooftop, the Daily Caller reported.

Cheatle explained that a decision was made not to place anyone on top of the building because the “sloped” roof made it unsafe. However, security experts and former Secret Service agents who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation emphasized that not having someone on the roof was a “big failure” and did not believe Cheatle’s explanation was sufficient.

“Let’s just say the local law enforcement officers [and] the Secret Service agree that it’s just not safe to keep someone up there for a couple of hours,” former Secret Service agent Anthony Cangelosi told the DCNF. “Then the question is, well, how do we maintain its integrity otherwise? It’s not like you just throw your hands up and say ‘can’t do that.’”

Cangelosi said there is no “justifiable reason” for failing to cover the roof. He suggested that they should have found solutions, such as putting up another platform or getting an officer on it.

Retired FBI agent and principal security consultant Peter Yachmetz pointed out that the shooter was moving around on the “unsafe” roof before the incident. “The slope didn’t affect him,” Yachmetz told the outlet.

JUST IN: USSS director Kim Cheatle says sn*pers weren’t on the roof where Thomas Crooks shot from because it was “sloped” and unsafe.

Ironically, the sn*pers who were behind Trump during the rally were on a sloped roof.

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its… pic.twitter.com/Vg36tXr9rJ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 16, 2024

“The reality is, regardless of the spin, that particular roof should have been under constant surveillance and or posted,” former secret service agent Tim Miller told the DCNF.