Recent Attack On Principal Reaction

Here are my thoughts on the United States Secret Service USSS Attack On Principal (AOP) Response:

First and foremost- our nation was very, very lucky Saturday. And based on the AOP response, our luck has run out.

Like it or not, the response to the assassination attempt on the former president and current Republican nominee for president, was a mess by any standard, let alone by the premier protection agency responsible for the safety of the leader of the free world, amongst others. Protection is supposed to be preventative in nature. Not responsive. The response is so very often, too late. We can’t congratulate ourselves for killing the attacker if the principal is dead. It’s still a failure. The USSS countersniper team did an excellent job at defeating the threat post-attack, but the principal was already down and protected.

Overall Security

The main question is why wasn’t the high ground occupied by the shooter, well within small arms effective fire range , occupied by law enforcement? It was covered by the countersniper team, and less than an 1/8th of the maximum distance of the USSS CS capabilities. The attacker was able to get multiple shots off, one which grazed the principal, before being neutralized by the USSS countersniper (CS)team.

What needs to be understood and corrected immediately:

-Why small arms effective fire range locations were not occupied or secured

-Limited or lack of use of drones or other air assets to identify threats/friendlies

-Leaving the principal on the X for over a minute with only agent body cover.

-Why weren't ballistic blankets or other protection measures used to support agent plates (if worn) or evacuation of the principal

-Why wasn't the principal pulled offstage to a lower, better covered/concealed position regardless if the direction of fire was known or not

-Why was the departure from the podium location scattered with an incomplete protective formation?

-Why did we allow the principal to defeat body cover?

-Why did we open and leave open the limo door for an excessive amount of time

-Why did it take so long to load the principal into the evac vehicle and expose principals head in the process?

-Could we have bladed the limo for better evacuation coverage and protection?

-What happens if and when we face mature assailants and complex attacks?

-It was not clear if there was a follow on attack defended against, or the area was clear - this is evident by agents unholstering and holstering weapons after the limo is seen slowly moving off the “X”.

To the untrained and uninformed eye - the USSS did a great job. For the rest of us, it was severely lacking.

Reports indicate the shooter, within 150M of the open air, elevated podium, was spotted minutes before the attack. Attendees directed law enforcement attention to the site with their concerns. And yet still the assailant was able to engage. How was the attacker able to get his weapon inside small arms range of the former POTUS and primary Republican Candidate? Why was there no attack disruption immediately after the reports?

As the initial shots are fired, USSS agents are seen moving as it is determined that there’s incoming, seemingly suppressed gunfire. The former president is grazed and then drops down and responding agents quickly provide body cover. This is a bright spot in the attack response. The agents were far beyond the customary “arm’s reach” distance customary in protection due to the event. However, they moved very quickly to cover the principal.

And then, nothing. We hear communication, leadership, and coordination coming from the USSS agents, yet see no movement and a lacking formation as they come off stage with the bleeding former president and leading Republican nominee.

Protection protocol, during an attack is to cover and evacuate. Being on an elevated platform, with no cover and no idea where the attack is coming from is not an optimal place to be. At all. So, where do you move? Or do you? What are you moving into? You can stay in place if the protectee is covered as the agents did. But protectors control the principal, their movements and the scene, which did not happen.

The tactical position could have been improved by moving off the elevated platform, reducing attack vectors while increasing the angle of attack causing the shooter to have to adjust to the movement. Further, the formation could have been bolstered using the counterassault support as an external formation, if the threat is defeated, but that didn't happen.

Evacuation

With the evacuation vehicle, we can move it to us, we can move to it or a combo of the two. In this case the terrain prevented the vehicle from moving. So they had to move the principal to it. Having just been attacked, and grazed no less, the open formation moves the principal to the vehicle with little control.

The limo door is opened waiting to receive the principal. From the camera angle viewed, there is a direct line of sight to the driver who remains exposed for over 20 seconds.

If a second attacker was going for a mobility kill on the limo, with a round to the driver, a bag of white powder, acid, etc. the evacuation would have spiraled down further from there. Luckily, this was not the case. Further, there is plenty of time and space to blade the vehicle to use it as cover as the team moves the protectee to it. But this does not happen.

In a complex attack, not a simple one like Saturday’s (one assailant, one vector, and one attack mechanism) there is so much more to think about and defeat. Yet, we had so many issues with this simple AOP, one shudders to think what might happen if there were even 10% more pressure added to the situation.

Countersniper operations

Generally, once someone is seen on a roof or window, the CS team holds on the target and another LE/security element investigates. Somehow this did not happen. As listed, drones, dispatched law enforcement or other security support can investigate as well. This did not happen either.

So, what if the person with the weapon is law enforcement? Planning, command and control deconfliction should take care of that quickly. Further, a drone could have been over the target in seconds, identified the threat and been used to kinetically disrupt the attack.

At the time of this writing, am not sure what prevented them from moving more quickly. There are reports a sheriff's deputy went to investigate, and a weapon was pointed at him causing him to disengage, but did he report that back?

None of the above requires expertise in security to understand the deficiencies. They’re there in plain sight and need to be corrected as soon as humanly possible. In no way did the USSS or the supporting agencies have a positive impact on the prevention of the incident.

If this is what right is supposed to look like, we are in for a very long, hot, and painful summer and fall. Our luck has run out, we need to get better now.