The SS or Police Officer had his rifle trained on the shooter well before the shooter pulled the trigger. Did the SS / Officer hesitate because he wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad guy? The guy was lying prone on the rooftop — not SOP for a guard detail. They are out in the open, highly visible to be a deterrent to move quickly.
Why didn’t the SS / Officer take him out before he started shooting?
Susan Crabtree on Secret Service policy. Some of this could be based on candidate fear of political blowback, if an innocent gets killed.
The blowback against the Secret Service started within the hour of the assassination attempt and continued even after Trump and other credited the agency with saving Trump’s life by quickly killing a shooter crawling across a nearby rooftop.
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.]