US Secret Service to account for how gunman got a chance
‘This really was an epic failure, the only comparable situation was when Reagan was shot. They clearly didn’t do enough advance work.’
The United States Secret Service is facing criticism over its failure to protect Donald Trump from an attempted assassination.
Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the service that provides security for present and former presidents and their families, will face a congressional inquiry after a 20-year-old gunman wounded Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The authorities who saw Thomas Crooks behaving suspiciously near metal detectors at the venue near Pittsburgh passed on the information to the Secret Service, according to CNN.
James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives’ oversight committee, announced within hours of the shooting that his panel would investigate. Ms Cheatle is due to answer questions on July 22.
Mike Turner, a Republican congressman from Ohio, said it was “unthinkable, unfathomable” that the gunman could get so close to his target.
“Along with Donald Trump, our democracy dodged a bullet yesterday,” he told CNN.
The Secret Service denied reports that it had rejected a request by Mr Trump’s team for more security before the rally.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said it had added “protective resources and technology and capabilities” to Mr Trump’s security detail as his campaign to retake the presidency accelerates.
The agency was founded in 1865 to fight rampant counterfeiting of currency. After the killing of President William McKinley in 1901 its role included the full-time protection of presidents.
In recent years it has been beset by scandals with claims that it is understaffed and underfunded. Among the biggest controversies was the revelation that agents protecting President Barack Obama during a 2012 summit in Colombia had brought prostitutes back to their hotel.
The near-assassination of Mr Trump, however, is a far more serious stain on the agency’s reputation.
“This really was an epic failure, the only comparable situation was when Reagan was shot,” said Ronald Kessler, the author of The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents.
Reagan had been in office for a matter of months when John Hinckley Jr shot him with a revolver outside a hotel in Washington. The president was seriously injured but survived.
A huge amount of effort goes into protecting a present or former president. Agents will visit the scene of a rally or appearance months beforehand to prepare for potential threats.
However, the process in this case was clearly a failure, according to Mr Kessler. “They clearly didn’t do enough advance work,” he said. He questioned whether enough agents were on the scene.
Members of the Secret Service’s counter-sniper team and counter-assault team were at the rally, according to the Associated Press.
The heavily armed counter-assault team, codenamed Hawkeye, is responsible for eliminating threats so that other agents can shield and take away the target they are protecting. The counter-sniper team, codenamed Hercules, uses long-range binoculars and is equipped with sniper rifles to deal with long-range threats.
These snipers are regarded as the best of the best and can hit “a bowling pin at 1000 yards (metres)”, a former agent said.
Greg Gitschier, who spent more than 20 years with the agency, said someone in Mr Trump’s security detail should have been focused on the roof where the gunman was.
“How could this happen? The only explanation is that maybe they didn’t have enough counter-snipers to cover every possible rooftop,” he said.
Agents, many hired from other branches of law enforcement, undergo stringent training to ensure they can react in a worst-case scenario. “That is the magic moment that we spend hundreds of hours training for,” Mr Gitschier said of the Trump shooting.
“When we train, we have villages and we have replicas of the White House and of Air Force One and everything else. We have cameras on us, they film us and then we get critiqued.
‘Why did you do this? Why did you do that? You took two seconds, it should have taken half a second.’ Stuff like that.
“The training is very good so you don’t have time to think, only to react.”
Agents train relentlessly, according to Mr Gitschier, who said the Secret Service prepared for night-time scenarios and the effect of the weather.
“It’s kind of embarrassing when you screw up, it makes you realise, ‘I’m not going to screw up again like that,’ ” he said. “It’s a good training method.”
When trouble breaks out and the target is endangered, agents must make instant decisions, Mr Gitschier said.
“The basic rule is, if you’re close to the gun, you go for the gun,” he said. “If you’re closer to your protectee, you cover up your protectee and get them out of there. We used to call it cover and evacuate.”
With the threat to Mr Trump hundreds of metres away, agents pounced on the former president, leaving snipers to take out the gunman. Agents then bundled him into a waiting car.
The Times
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