As much intense and hostile negative attitudes as there are in some of the crazier quarters toward the President how does the Secret Service prevent this?
A sniper with a high powered weapon could perch practically anywhere. If he’s in the open and they know the routes he will be traveling how do they protect against this? Surely they can’t cover everything.
Back in 1992, candidates Clinton and Gore were appearing only a block from my office. The building manager thought it would be a really neat idea if we all went up on the roof and watched the rally from there.
When we got up there, we were greeted by a Secret Service agent who, although clearly not happy about it, let us stay up their and watch. From the top of the roof we could see the tops of a lot of other roofs, all of which were occupied by one or more people (some in uniforms, some in plain clothes) carrying high-powered rifles.
Maybe they can’t cover everything, but they sure as hell cover a lot.
Mostly I’d say it’s that in spite of all the intense and hostile negative attitudes, they really don’t want to shoot the guy. The guys who have attacked the president in recent history are all going on the record books as being some pretty fucked-up people.
And, the SS puts their own spotters on the roofs of surrounding buildings, and they DO have snipers that can make that shot from half a mile.
They know the routes, but the public doesn’t. Also US Presidents (since JFK) never travel in open top vehicles. In terms of outside speaking engagements, they literally search & monitor all possible potential sniper’s nests. As stated above it takes a highly skilled shooter to be able to reliably hit that small a target with one shot from any great distance, so the search radius isn’t as huge as you’d think…
Just as a w.a.g., I would say probably a combination of the following:
[ul][li]No president would ever ride in an open convertible nowadays.[/li][li]The exact route and schedule the president takes is always need to know.[/li][li]When possible public appearances are held in indoor areas that can be secured.[/li][li]When he makes a scheduled appearance in an outdoors location, the Secret Service actively searches and covers every possible vantage point out to military sniper distances.[/li][/ul]P.S. In such outdoor appearances, I wonder if the President wears a piece of hardened armor covering his chest under his coat. -i.e., Batman saying “why do you think I’ve worn a target on my chest all these years?”
My understanding is a lot of it has to do with route/site planning.
They know how far away it is plausible for a sniper attack. They have to have line of site as well. With proper planning - this can be limited to a few buildings. The security on these buildings is tightened - and watched by the SS snipers. I believe workers in those building are sometimes subjected to searches when entering for x period of time before the event.
They can’t always do this - if you recall in (I believe) Chicago during 2008 - when Obama actually Was elected - he was behind a fairly large and presumably thick/effective bulletproof/resistant glass type thing.
Most of the time he is indoors. When traveling to NYC - The Waldorf Astoria is used (in part) as they have a fairly large entrance that is off the main street. You basically are just surrounded by the Waldorf itself when exiting/entering the hotel from this entrance.
I’m by no means a long range shooter. I have done my share of deer hunting with a scope. There’s a limited number of positions and angles that a shooter can take to hit a target. Pro snipers like the Secret Service has can determine the locations a bad guy can shoot from. They either station agents in those locations or cover them with snipers that can take out the bad guy.
There could be a problem stopping a highly professional sniper that trained with a foreign army. But, the average home grown wacko isn’t going to have anywhere near that kind of skills.
Read “Point of Impact” by Stephen Hunter, and the basis of the movie “Shooter” with Mark Wahlberg. The author goes into the logistics of long-range sniping if you’re interested in more detail, and it’s a fun read. Overall, it’s what was said above: they have defenses in place for most scenarios, and very few people can make the kind of shot you’re talking about outside their defense perimeter.
That may change, as there are all sorts of computerized automatic targeting aids that will help moderately-skilled snipers expand their range.
Any DC workers here? I have a friend who used to work for the gov’t downtown and periodically their building would be “locked down”. I think it was because someone important, ie the President, was in the vicinity. Not allowed to get near the windows either.
I’ve been on the roof of a DC building and I know the building management notified the secret service in advance for permission. The WH was in view. And I wondered then how many eyes were watching us.
Well, consider that the Secret Service has their own snipers most of the likely spots that a sniper might shoot from. And many of those spots are going to overlook each other. Not only are they occupying the logical places to snipe from for the purpose of covering more short-range shooters, they’re setting up cross-fire zones that cover the likely sniper nests. Dangerous folks, these Secret Service types.
I would assume the most obvious answer. A real sniper, IE not some camo-sniffing nitwit, would be heavily trained by a real military to make those shots. This means that if one were to take the shot and make what would happen is once the feds figure out what country did this then there’d be a lot of visits from F-117’s, B-2, tomahawks, and other heavy ordinance which would really ruin that governments day. (But like everyone else has said, protecting against the lone wack-job is a simpler thing.)