“When seconds count, the police (and the Secret Service) are only minutes away.” – anonymous
There is a disturbing similarity between the attempted Trump assassination at Bethel, PA and the school mass shooting at Uvalde, Texas. If eyewitness reports prove correct, local Bethel law enforcement knew of the threat beforehand and failed to stop it both preemptively and at the critical moment – including, incredibly, backing away from the threat! This proves an opinion I have long held based on both a military and law enforcement career: just because someone wears a uniform, a badge, and carries a gun it does NOT automatically make them a hero. This is particularly true of the TSA where one quarter (25%!) of their officers face disciplinary action each year. (see: TSA GO AWAY! this blog site)
I have participated in one vice-presidential security detail while in law enforcement and several Personal Security Detail missions while in the Army. The failure of the Trump Secret Service Security team is obvious to anyone who has had such training. At whatever level the errors were committed, the responsibility for the shooting lies with the Secret Service. They were in charge and failed to protect their principal. It is difficult to believe the D.E.I. indoctrinated Secret Service director would appoint sufficient manpower and resources to do an ‘A’ team job for a mission to protect a principal she viscerally hates and perceives as a threat to democracy. The agents on site and Trump deserve better.
Just as tactical SIGINT intercept teams (SOT-As) provide security to combat units by mapping out the surrounding terrain for threat transmission “dead zones”, so should every Personal Security Detail (PSD) map out observation “dead zones” like that of the reverse slope roof at Bethel for every stationary venue. This is not rocket science or brain surgery – it should be simply common sense by those responsible for such high stakes missions.
Concentrating the majority of the security elements in the immediate vicinity of the principal may be considered by some as “hardening the target”, but it is in fact as bad an idea as it has been for school mass shootings like Uvalde. (see: Uvalde, Texas: Cowardly Cops and Feckless School Administrators this blog site dated ). Dispersing security elements gives them greater observation coverage and freedom of maneuver to react. This lessens their vulnerability and enables their pursuit of a possible fleeing shooter.
If those two snipers were the only ones on site, positioning themselves behind the president and literally within a stone’s throw from each other was bad tactics. It basically made two snipers just one because both had the same perspective of the target area (even if they divided it up the middle). It may look impressive and intimidating to some but having snipers behind and above the Principal violates two basic sniper paradigms: concealment and observation. Lacking concealment made it easy for a shooter to avoid their line of sight and even made the snipers potential targets themselves. Their observation perspective was not that of a potential long-range assassin. It would have been better to have been on the third outer circle occupying potential assassin positions with the assassin’s perspective and observation on every identified blind spot – if not otherwise blocking or occupying them. If it is true a Bethel police officer stationed at that building backed down from the shooter, this identifies a vulnerability relying on local law enforcement – especially in unionized, blue states.
Prior to gender political correctness that lowered standards, Secret Service agents assigned to the President’s Security Detail had to be at least six feet tall. President Reagan was 6′ 1″ and Trump is 6′ 3″. The female Secret Service agent that took part in moving the president off the stage was less than that and exposed the upper half of the president even more by bending over for some reason. A taller male agent saw this and tried covering the exposed president’s face with his hand. That alert but feeble attempt, though well intentioned, would not have stopped a rifle bullet. His effort was necessitated by the female agent failing to complete the protective circle. Was she afraid of being shot herself? Did she have to be ordered to stand up and complete the circle by the movement leader? If the president was incapacitated, would she have been able to assist expeditiously in carrying the president to the armored car? Doubtful. Later, she had difficulty holstering her weapon and, failing to do so, then stationed herself facing the crowd with her service weapon pointed at them with no identifiable target – rather than the “Ready and Scan” position with her weapon at 45 degrees while scanning the crowd for a threat. This posture is done to prevent accidental or sympathetic discharge of one’s service weapon when there is no identifiable threat. She could have made the situation worse by pointing her weapon at people causing panic or injury in the innocent and mental/medical distress in the feeble.
You can bet on two things resulting from this shooting: 1. It won’t be the last attempt to take Trump’s life; and 2. It wasn’t the main effort prepared by the Left who has so much to lose by letting him live. They won’t fail if they choose to green light that option – as the democrat governor of Illinois declared on a hot mic “We just have to do what we must do.” I believe the same was said of Jimmy Hoffa in the same city.
And how legitimate will an investigation be into the shooting when multiple requests by the Trump campaign for increased security have been turned down by Biden’s band of brigands in the Justice Department and the FBI? This shooting was not the main effort but it was enabled, in my opinion, by a D.E.I.fied Secret Service director. She should resign for failing to acknowledge the incredibly increased threat to President Trump – not her perception of Trump being “a threat to democracy”- and for failing to provide the obviously required increase in manpower and resources.
A further note regarding resources: there are mobile, tactical capabilities for early detection of incoming indirect fires (like the mortars and rockets Hamas likes to use) and for countering incoming armed drones. They should be used to protect Trump. Just because those haven’t been a threat yet doesn’t mean they won’t be.
Kudos to the red bearded witness who apparently refused to speak to the U.S. mainstream media who incited America to conduct such a shooting- choosing instead to speak with the British Broadcasting Corporation!
Considering the unabashedly overt, ubiquitous threat by the Left that has won the “high ground” in 2020, the odds against Trump living to occupy the Oval Office and serve a four- year term are less than the worst Vegas odds ever recorded – and everyone knows in Vegas the odds always favor the (White) house.
“Now, you thought you could break me,
Add me to your list, notch me on your gun.
Let me tell you this, I got news for you baby,
You can’t keep a good man down.”
– paraphrased from Alabama’s 40-Hour Week album released 1985.
So true. I have to add way over a year ago when Trump was in Atlanta a hot mic was on. When Trump left the courthouse after being charged 2 reporters were laughing as his car drove off it should have been a convertible!!!!! How horrible can American reporters be to laugh at a possibility of an assignation ?!! The Secret Service should have been investigating then !!!!