that officer needs to be fired
The Democrats want PDJT dead. Nothing could be more obvious. Also the entire federal bureaucracy wants him dead. They almost got him Saturday. They won’t give up either.
As far as conspiracies go, what I can’t understand is why secret service or law enforcement weren’t covering that rooftop the whole time. It seems like more than just a lapse or error.
But to play devil’s advocate on a few things, I think I can understand why they didn’t shot him. I have a feeling they just weren’t sure. No one wanted to take a shot during a political rally and be blamed for killing a civilian. Can you imagine being perched with a sniper rifle and having to make the call to shoot across a crowd to kill someone who hasn’t started shooting yet? Or worse, killing a member of law enforcement who was collaborating on security?
I’d be willing to bet that if they release the audio from the secret service or if it comes out in an investigation that you would hear a lot of chatter like “Is he ours? Is that our asset? I NEED CONFIRMATION that he has a gun and is not law enforcement”
I think a lot of people just aren’t thinking through what it would have been like to be there.
Nothing stopped the cop from shooting rounds in the air to alert trump. They’re just making stuff up as they go along.
The mysterious ladder--reports do not describe the cop climbing a ladder. Media reports he climbed down a ladder. Another report describes the cop was hoisted up to peer over the roofline, dropped/falling to the ground after encountering the perp aiming his weapon at the cop.
The officer had no choice. Only in the movies can one fire a gun while hanging onto a ladder. It takes two hands to fire a gun.
Even if you could fire a gun with one hand, the recoil would likely throw you backwards off the ladder. Also you are an easy target for someone on the area above you.
The only choice was to retreat and call for help. The assassin was forced into firing right away and possibly that added to the the factors of him not getting off a deadly shot.
Trying to blame this officer is just a diversion by the media .
” The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that’s when Secret Service snipers shot him”
“the AP is now reporting that a police officer saw the gunman before the shots were fired, and the police officer retreated allowing time for the shooter to fire 5 shots toward his target “
In other words it was a govt hit job gone wrong.
When he got to the top of the ladder, the kid pointed the rifle at him, whereupon the cop started back down. Radios presumably started crackling about this rifle-armed kid. Cops aren’t paid to commit suicide. When your adversary has the drop on you, procedure is to back away and maneuver for a better position.
Susan Crabtree on Secret Service policy. Some of this could be based on candidate fear of political blowback, if an innocent gets killed.
But a source within the Secret Service community tells RealClearPolitics that the agency rules of engagement in this situation are to wait until the president is fired upon to return fire.
“You want to take a shot then find out the guy was holding a telescope?” the source suggested. “The Secret Service is by nature reactive…and you better be right when you do react or you’re f-——d.”
The Secret Service protocol requires that a counter sniper aware of a potential shooter to radio directly to intelligence division team to respond and investigate. In this case, the investigation may have been cut short by the shooter firing his weapon, so the counter sniper then fired as quickly as possible in return.
The source praised the counter sniper who acquired the target and responded within three seconds, calling their performance “incredible.”
“The counter snipers are highly trained and extremely accurate,” he said.]
A commenter who spent time in war zones makes a few points:
We’ve all seen this photo by now of the sniper taking his view off of the scope. Hesitating.
Honestly? I probably would have done the same in that situation. I will explain.
Think about it. You’re not in Syria. You’re on sniper duty at a political rally in the US. You usually don’t have threats. Whatever “threats” you do have are usually an unruly Bernie Bro that venue security can just throw out and Secret Service doesn’t even need to get involved
Then you see something. Looks like a gun. Better get this right! We all remember what happened to Derek Chauvin. (Sticks head up, looks to confirm) Imagine shooting an unarmed civilian because you *thought* you saw a gun. Seriously, imagine the news stories the next day.
You’ve heard of fight or flight, but there is a third option: freeze. You’re not in Syria or Iraq. It’s not that kind of rules of engagement. What do you do? Better get this right
Then the shots confirm what you saw, and you return fire. All this thought process happens in about 3 seconds if you watch the clip. It’s easy to pick about that clip now but at the time...nobody was even watching. They were listening to the Trump speech. That was it.
Again, you’re probably not going to like my take. I don’t really like it either. It’s the kind of thing that training is supposed to fix. But I also understand.
You get this one wrong, you’re doing a life sentence.
Before someone says “but qualified immunity”, look, he gets this shot wrong, the first news headline is “TRUMP BODYGUARDS MURDERING INNOCENT MINORITY WOMEN AND CHILDREN” and connect the dots on how the DOJ will respond.]
...we are dealing with evil.
We need to stop trying to rationalize/ignore this cancer, and start removing it.
...before it does the same to us.
Something is very wrong with the whole picture. How could the shooter park his car, walk across a parking lot with a long gun hanging from is shoulder dressed in shorts and t-shirt, walk up to a ladder, climb the ladder and crawl up the roof, all the while observers are yelling at police, for a perfect shot at a target 130 yards away, and no one pays any attention even though people are yelling at the police. The shooter has a better shooters position than the SS behind Trump. Then fires 4 shots before the SS CAT team takes him out. Logic is lacking.
I watched a video where people were screaming they saw the shooter climbing up to the roof several minutes before he fired a single shot. During that time the SS should have ushered Trump off the stage. TOTAL INCOMPETENCE!
p
The mistakes were made long before this officer encountered Crooks on the roof. In fact, at this point it was too late. There really should have been police and or secret service coverage on the roof to begin with. That is the thing to investigate.
Probably ROE...can’t shoot unless authorized over his radio. Almost like someone higher up wanted it to happen.
Former active duty serviceman on the friction between decisionmaker and trigger puller in protection gigs. In a war zone, you can’t just shoot anyone you see, but there are few witnesses and you can shoehorn narratives to paper over screw-ups. At political rallies, there are many sets of eyes, including electronic ones, to put you in prison if you mistakenly take out a civilian.
If you’re asking why the counter-sniper didn’t take the shot. You should be asking, was he allowed to make that decision on his own or did he need approval.
Protection is an interagency game of politics where the trigger puller is rarely the decision maker. Lots of unknowns go into making a decision that seems simple in hindsight. Everything is easier when you have time to judge all the variables.
Before you jump to judging the person making the call, realize they can’t see what the sniper sees and is being relayed information over a radio from someone they probably met that morning in a briefing room. There is little trust between them. The decision maker has to trust that the sniper knows what he’s looking at and isn’t mistaking it for another team on the wrong roof. If this sounds silly, I encourage to you get on a walkie talkie and try to give another human directions live.
Additionally, the real world for the Secret Service has been one of peace since Reagan. While there has undoubtedly always been risks, they have not materialized and therefore are not real to the man or woman in the field. It is very easy to be lulled into a sense of calm when nothing goes “wrong” for such a long time. You train and plan for a what if. Unfortunately, training for a what if will never replicate real world.
Real world experience is training. Unfortunately, If that training is only in peace time. If you never really get shot at, if nothing goes wrong, you end up unconsciously training peace time habits. Peace time habits end up being bad habits once you enter a real world scenario (I hesitate to say war time since this is not war).
You should ask how much training these men and woman receive and is it adequate. Unfortunately, training cost money and budgets have been reduced. It’s gets hard to justify additional training when nothing bad happens (I imagine this will now change). If you don’t know what training they get, I suggest you ask or research. It’s not what you think and often far less than it should be.
Lastly, in a world where police have been prosecuted for making incorrect decisions or taking action that results in a suspect being killed, do you think that thought doesn’t weigh on their every decision? If you think it shouldn’t impact them, I encourage you to think harder. Nobody wants to go to jail for doing their job. Right, wrong or indifferent. Police included.
To close, if you are pointing blame at someone else for what they did or didn’t do, you should look around and realize this is the world you allowed to develop. We allowed police to be defunded. We allowed politics to become so divided. Yesterday was just the result of a long list of small decisions that culminated in a near miss. What looks like a cause on the surface is rarely the root cause. If you aren’t asking questions, you will never get to the root cause and in turn solutions that can fix this.]
Saw a rally video this morning where it was clear that security cleared a field of fire for the assassin just seconds before shots were fired.
Couple that with the Secret Service snipers holding fire until after they knew that Trump was down and the administrations deniability gets mighty thin.