Posted on 07/16/2024 12:00:52 PM PDT by Morgana
It was a grey, drizzly Monday on March 30, 1981, when President Reagan emerged from the Washington Hilton hotel, heading back to his presidential limousine parked a few yards away.
His inauguration had been only a few weeks before and he'd just finished speaking at a lunch of US labor union leaders.
Along with the rest of the White House press corps I was about 20 feet away, roped off from the President. Suddenly, just as one of our number shouted a question for him, shots rang out.
In a split second, a burly Secret Service agent brusquely bundled Reagan into the limo, another pushed his colleague hard to ensure both he and the President were flat on the back seat.
The limo was surrounded by agents, guns drawn, the would-be assassin wrestled to the ground by the public as well as law enforcement. Reagan's vehicle sped off.
Within four minutes it was at George Washington Hospital, even though, not initially realizing the President had been hit (a bullet had entered his rib cage), the Secret Service had at first started out for the White House.
Reagan was close to death on arrival. But he survived, thanks in no small part to the speedy response of the Secret Service, which thwarted the shooter.
Now consider what happened when Donald Trump was shot on Saturday night.
The initial response was by the book. Brave agents piled on him to protect him from further bullets. They kept him down until they were told the shooter had been killed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“I still have questions about that woman behind him holding the sign...”
Really. She was very calm, cool, and collected in spite of bullets, and her quick draw of the camera was sus — almost as if she knew. She nodded her head, and shots rang out? (Heard that, IDK if true.)
It was actually 26 minutes between the time that the shooter was reported as being armed and on the roof and when the first shots were fired. The SS knew about this direct and imminent danger long before the civilians on the ground were screaming that there was a shooter on the roof.
[Incompetence is obvious but Iâd hate to see it blamed for what is surely deliberate malice. There must be some attempt at accountability.]
Bad hiring practices aren’t just political talking points - they literally lead to situations like this, where people who are incapable of doing their jobs are put in as top level management. The woman in charge might be fine as a personal bodyguard, but doesn’t belong anywhere near a management position.
This isn’t about training. It’s about fundamental cognitive ability. She ain’t got it, and no amount of training will fix that.
You donât have to be a genius to mount an assassination attempt. Literal dictators have been killed by assassins over the centuries, despite serious security precautions, and in much more controlled security settings. The key elements necessary to pull it off are above average intelligence and a willingness to die, if necessary.
If you wanted to put Joe Biden in the ground, you could probably get really close. But it would be a one-way mission.
Rich Hanania has an essay on how in recent decades, political assassinations seem to have petered out. We can only hope that this attempt isnât the start of a new and disturbing trend.
https://www.richardhanania.com/p/why-are-there-so-few-assassinations
A commenter who spent time in war zones makes a few points:
Honestly? I probably would have done the same in that situation. I will explain.
Think about it. Youâre not in Syria. Youâre on sniper duty at a political rally in the US. You usually donât have threats. Whatever âthreatsâ you do have are usually an unruly Bernie Bro that venue security can just throw out and Secret Service doesnât 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.
Youâve heard of fight or flight, but there is a third option: freeze. Youâre not in Syria or Iraq. Itâs 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. Itâs 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, youâre probably not going to like my take. I donât really like it either. Itâs the kind of thing that training is supposed to fix. But I also understand.
You get this one wrong, youâre doing a life sentence.
Before someone says âbut qualified immunityâ, look, he gets this shot wrong, the first news headline is âTRUMP BODYGUARDS MURDERING INNOCENT MINORITY WOMEN AND CHILDRENâ and connect the dots on how the DOJ will respond.]
The sign was anti-Biden. You can see more of them in the video of the stands after Trump left and they were caring for the wounded.
It is a play on the Apprentice meme “Joe Biden you’re fired!” Takes up more than one line to Biden’s name is by itself at the top.
One drone with infrared sensors would quickly have spotted the shooter... no drones were deployed. Why not?
My wife noticed that woman, as well...thought she was ‘suspicious’.
The trouble with that guy’s assessment is that the SS knew from multiple reports that there was an armed shooter on that roof 26 minutes before the shooter fired any shots.
The women who head the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle and Cynthia Radway, discussing DIVERSITY in the agency.
LINK ONLY (no USA TODAY material can be posted)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMorp0BsQCk
Do we know there were no drones? There is a photo of the shooter taken from above his shoulder when he was on the rooftop. Where did that photo come from?
[Whoever the snipers asked permission from to neutralize the shooter - and who denied that permission, reportedly - would have known there was no SWAT team on the roof.
Also, no SWAT team ever would be dressed like this shooter was, and the scopes the snipers had would have made it really easy to know this was not LE on the roof, which is why they requested permission to take out the shooter.
The big question is who denied the permission.]
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 Trumpâs 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.
âYou want to take a shot then find out the guy was holding a telescope?â the source suggested. âThe Secret Service is by nature reactiveâŚand you better be right when you do react or youâre f-ââd.â
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 âincredible.â
âThe counter snipers are highly trained and extremely accurate,â he said.]
Comm sabotage of some sort is actually easy to prove.
1. Question to any of the SS on stage: “Were you notified there was a potential shooter and that you needed to get the President off stage?”
2. Question to all of the SS off stage: “Did you use to Comm to notify any other agents there was a potential shooter on site?”
No on one.
Yes on any two.
Conspiracy proved.
That said—if I were doing the conspiracy I would jam the radios.
Under that scenario nobody in the Secret Service or local law enforcement would know what was happening during critical moments.
Here is a Homeland Security link on this exact topic:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JammingFact_121416-r1-508.pdf
and yes, that is a very dangerous rooftop position. But it is what is required of the job.
The ease with which they flat-out lie should give everyone pause. They assume that the media will cover for them.
And the sad thing is, it works for everybody except the “conspiracy theorists” - which is why the “conspiracy theorists” have been right on just about everything.
We learned that to say, âfrom whence,â advertised illiteracy. Whence means âfrom which place.â
How can an English publication, The Guardian, not know this?
Make sure Comer knows this information.
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