No. of Recommendations: 9
What a sad day for ALL Americans. We've had assassination attempts in the past so one cannot even say we used to be better than this. We've had crazies injecting themselves into the political realm since nearly the founding. This event is different though, being the first of this profile in a media environment optimized to profit from hyperbole, conflict and extremism. The "old media" world provided a centering, calming impulse. The current media world? Probably not so much.
Donald Trump has posted a brief note on his Truth Social that expressed sypmathy for the attendee who was killed and thanks to Secret Service personnel who protected him. Other partisans are already trending towards a less conciliatory message. Possible VP candidate JD Vance has already commented that this shooting is the result of Biden's "rhetoric".
Today is not just some isolated incident.
The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.
That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.
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One thing that seems clear (emphasis on SEEMS, always willing to consider new information as it comes out...) is that this event is the result of a major failure of Secret Service protocols. Donald Trump isn't just a mere presumptive nominee for a party in the upcoming Presidential election. He's an EX-PRESIDENT just a notch down from the CURRENT PRESIDENT (and maybe VP and Speaker of the House) in protection priority.
What seems clear from availble video:
* outdoor event with a seating area probably about 40 people deep front to back and maybe 200 feet wide
* the shooter was on the roof of an adjacent building (a shed) about 300 yards to Trump's right as he looked at the crowd
* Trump was looking to his right when shot
* the bullet grazed his upper right ear
* the attendee killed was between the shooter and Trump
* roughly eight shots were fired, not clear how many from the shooter versus agents
* to those in attendance, the shots sounded like fireworks, not rifle fire (silencer?)
With those observations as background, the actions taken by the Secret Service AFTER the shooting seem inappropriate for the situation. Trump immediately ducked down as agents rushed the stage to protect him. All shooting ended within about 30 seconds as described by witnesses so it SEEMS the Secret Service thought they had THE assailant at that point. Yet they couldn't possibly KNOW that. They missed the possibility of the first shooter, did they miss anyone else outside the security perimeter? That's critical to understand because at some point after that, they appeared to insist on standing Trump up on the dais, yet with all the agents standing around him to protect him. WHY?
I'm pretty sure the lower part of the dais provides a bullet proof zone behind all of the flags and bunting. Why elevate the principal BACK INTO A CLEAR LINE OF SIGHT? Rather than walking him off to get to his vehicle, he should have remained down and the vehicle driven to him to then get him out of the venue.
The Secret Service has experienced multiple failures of protocol since 2009 protecting multiple targets in both parties. Until now, most of those failures involved inappropriate conduct of agents doing advance work, etc. and didnt rise to a level that impacted a protectee. Here, obviously all of the holes in the swiss cheese lined about and resulted in a civilian death and injury to a protectee. For obvious reasons, most of what the Secret Service does remains hidden but this requires a competent, non-partisan investigation into larger issues with its operations.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 0
WTH: All shooting ended within about 30 seconds as described by witnesses so it SEEMS the Secret Service thought they had THE assailant at that point.
What surprised me was that within those 30 seconds, the SS both was able to locate the shooter (300 yards away) AND manage to shoot and kill him. How is that possible? Were they already monitoring that particular rooftop?
No. of Recommendations: 1
I wrote: What surprised me was that within those 30 seconds, the SS both was able to locate the shooter (300 yards away) AND manage to shoot and kill him. How is that possible? Were they already monitoring that particular rooftop?
Correction: the shooter was only about 200 feet away!
No. of Recommendations: 2
How is that possible? Were they already monitoring that particular rooftop?
My understanding is the range from the shooter to the stage is more like 150 yards, not 300 yards. At least one Secret Service sniper was on a rooftop a bit closer to the shooter, and appears to have been looking in the direction of the shooter at the time of the shooting.
There’s also a report that a citizen was trying to raise an alarm over a suspicious person on a rooftop with a gun. Whether that was successful or was the actual shooter is something that will have to be determined in the investigation.
I’m not surprised that they were able to locate and neutralize the shooter quickly. That is exactly their job and what they are trained to do. If they did indeed have a tip that something was up, that could have sped up their response.
—Peter
