There Will Always Be Vulnerabilities

On several occasions during my career with the Los Angeles Police Department, I was called on to work in various roles alongside the Secret Service when a president or some other high-level protectee visited the city. In one such instance, I was assigned to man a rooftop with a Secret Service counter-sniper team. The position overlooked a field on which the protectee would be landing in a helicopter, and that field was surrounded by multi-story buildings which offered a potential assassin a position from which to shoot.

The team I was with, a sniper and a spotter, had with them a map of the landing zone and the surrounding area, including precise measurements from their position to every other nearby  rooftop. The measurements, they said, were to aid in the precise calibration of their rifle scope should they have to engage a threat to the protectee. They also kept track of the precise temperature and wind direction, factors that would weigh in their choice of ammunition should they be called to act.

From my position I could see other teams similarly situated on rooftops, but so numerous were the nearby buildings that there weren’t enough counter-sniper teams to post one on all of them. I was told, however, that any position overlooking the landing zone would be guarded by at least one Secret Service agent, most of them accompanied by an LAPD officer.

The level of professionalism displayed by these men was extraordinary, and the amount of advance preparation required to secure that landing zone was staggering. Keep in mind that the landing zone was just one site involved in the visit, and that the protectee would be there for just a matter of minutes as he made his way from the helicopter to the waiting motorcade. Similar preparations had to be made for the nearby venue where the protectee was to appear, and at every stop while the protectee was in Los Angeles.

There were other times when I was paired with a Secret Service agent to work undercover within the crowd at an event where a protectee was appearing. Police officers are often paired with agents because, while Secret Service agents are lawfully authorized to act in defense of their protectee, they lack the arrest powers of a local officer. There are occasions in which a person in a crowd may raise suspicions while not necessarily constituting a verifiable threat. In such a situation, if there is probable cause to believe a local law has been violated, the police officer is authorized to detain the person while the Secret Service agent does not.

Perhaps like most of you, I was once under the impression that a president or other dignitary was contained in an impenetrable bubble while moving about under Secret Service protection. Having been on the inside of these operations a few times, I found it chilling that no matter how much preparation is done, no matter how many personnel are devoted to an event, there are always vulnerabilities, as was demonstrated on Saturday.

We may or may not learn of the specific breakdowns that allowed Saturday’s would-be assassin to make his attempt on Mr. Trump’s life. How that rooftop was left unmanned and unmonitored is a question that demands an answer. But even if failures are identified and changes made within the Secret Service, in a campaign season that demands personal appearances before large crowds, there will be always vulnerabilities that a determined assassin can exploit. And, sadly, with so much rhetoric painting Mr. Trump as a unique “threat to democracy” and what have you, there will continue to be lunatics eager to do so.