Trump Assassination Attempt
On Saturday July 13th, a 20 year old male attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Immediately there were questions and conspiracy theories on how this could happen. Was it an inside job or a failure of the Secret Service (SS) and Law Enforcement (LE)? Like the JFK shooting in 1963, we may never know the full story, but as the story unfolded I tried to read and analyze as much information available.
Conspiracy Theory
There are a ton of questions surrounding the shooter. How did he get on the roof without being stopped, where did he get the money for the bombs, why does he have 3 encrypted foreign accounts, etc. etc. All of these are fuel to the fire for an “inside job” theory, and the lack of answers from the agencies certainly don’t help to quell the rumors. However, in my mind, the fact that the assassination failed is the biggest reason to dispel the conspiracy theory. The shooter was obviously not well trained. He missed a relatively easy shot on a rather large stationary target from less than 150 yards which means if it was a plot, it was a terrible attempt. The JFK assassination was a much more difficult shot considering the rifle used and that Kennedy was seated in a moving car. If this was a coordinated effort, it was not well planned. I won’t discount the fact that biases or political agendas may have contributed to the failures that led up to the shooting, but I do not think this was a deep state attempt to remove a political opponent.
Incompetency
For many it may be harder to believe the failure was due to incompetency than conspiracy. However, after training with Secret Service and other agencies and hearing what other law enforcement officers have said about training standards, it isn’t a stretch to believe this was an utter failure on multiple levels. The lack of communications between agencies, lack of funds for adequate training, reduced recruitment numbers and standards for officers have been well documented failures in other active shooter events like Parkland, Pulse Nightclub and Uvalde. The so called “experts” on TV all say the SS or LE would have never left that roof unmonitored, but the experts I trust come from both SS and LE backgrounds as well, and they have shared examples of failures or lapses in judgment they have seen first hand.
The working theory among these experts including Boondocks’ owner, Larry Rowlett, former US Secret Service Special Agent in Charge of the Ronald Reagan Protective Division, is that a reduced SS team for former presidents rely heavily on local LE for these types of events. The local LE were in charge of the building the shooter climbed on. The reason the roof wasn’t occupied is likely due to the fact that LE found the roof difficult to access and surmised that if they could not get on it easily, then an assassin couldn’t either. Plus, the SS snipers would be able to see the shooter on the roof. When eyewitnesses started reporting the guy on the roof, local LE were attempting to locate and stop him when an officer climbed on the roof and had a gun pointed at him. He retreated, similar to what happened in the active shooter events listed above. This commotion alerted the SS snipers, but with compromised communications, SS were not able to truly identify the shooter as friend or foe. There were also questions about so called “rules of engagement” or orders not to shoot, but could you imagine the aftermath if the SS snipers proactively shot and killed what turned out to be a local LE sniper? Once the shots rang out, SS sprung into action surrounding the president and taking out the threat. There were additional critiques about how SS escorted him out and their gun handling skills, all which tie back to lack of training. If you want to learn more about the training standards of LE, read “LE Weapon Handling During the Assassination Attempt” from Greg Ellifritz
As mentioned above we may never know what truly happened in on July 13th. What we do know is that the SS detail for a candidate (even one who is a former president) is different than a president. In addition, an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate hasn’t happened since Robert F. Kennedy was killed in 1968, and he did not have a SS protection. The policies, procedures and staff differences are what most likely led up to the failures in this event. Unfortunately, the silence from SS and LE will only add to the conspiracy theories. What needs to happen is top brass should recognize their failure, own up to it and bring up the need to increase training at all levels.
