Nobody, NOBODY wanted this, but yet…
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html
Moderating:
Why are you posting this bare link from August 2016 in a breaking news thread about an assassination attempt on Trump?
It doesn’t belong in this thread. Don’t do this again.
Which of course ridiculously ignores the fact that the SS agents nearby Trump would gang-tackle him down and hustle him away from the explosion while other agents dealt with the distraction.
Even if it’s the case that they can’t shoot first, they could have done something like raised an alert. That way the the agents can get Trump off the stage before shots are fired. I thought that all an agent had to do was say “gun” into the radio and all the agents would do what’s necessary to whisk the protected person away.
If ever there was a more fitting headline….
An ‘outcast’ who wasn’t let on school rifle team because he was ‘a bad shooter’. Yep.
This. Assuming it was a policeman and not SS and he was investigating what the people said was a man with a riffle the protocol would be to spot him and make a radio call or spot him with gun drawn and shoot him. At the very least make a radio call of a possible sniper under investigation with a specific location. “This is officer ___ investigating sighting of man with rifle on building X by event goers”.
There are 2 failures in this scenario.
- The police officer effed it up
- The SS completely missed this.
I don’t know if the water tower in the background could be used as a spotting platform but the tree line behind the buildings would probably be a focal point of concern for the SS for a concealed shooter. Who would expect that someone out in the open could crawl up a nearby building that was previously secured. They’re literally looking past it and above for a concealed shooter. Just a guess.
To make it a proper list,
- There was no time between the officer investigating the roof and shots fired (on the order of seconds)
~Max
Yes but before investigating it would have been useful to make a report prior to climbing the building. It would have drawn the attention of the SS sniper who could have yelled “GUN”.
But that’s what I’m saying. We don’t have a timeline yet. Maybe SS was alerted by officer and simply didn’t have time to secure the president. Suspect was killed in a matter of seconds right?
~Max
Their reaction after the shooting started was spot on. But the people pointing out the guy climbing up the building was minutes prior and the officer who climbed up the building should have alerted the SS of what he was going to investigate. If that wasn’t communicated then there were minutes lost prior to the start of shooting.
I saw the witness claim he tried to alert local police minutes before. I have not seen anyone report the officer attempted to climb the roof minutes before. CNN reported the events as if the officer let go immediately before shooter opened fire, quoting local sheriff.
~Max
It was reported that the officer climbed up, the shooter turned and saw him and pointed his gun at him. The officer fell off the roof. If that’s accurate there’s a possible communication gap at that point. A call should have gone out at the time the officer acknowledged what multiple people were talking about.
“The officer let go of the ledge to ‘take cover’ and save his own life. The gunman then started firing from the rooftop.”
CNN.
Per sheriff they may have been responding to a call on a suspicious person, without knowing he was armed.
~Max
What I’m saying is he should have reported what people were alerting him too prior to climbing up to check. The SS sniper had a scope and could have focused on the building. There’s a possible communication gap.
What I’m saying is maybe they did make that report and it didn’t help - couldn’t help.
~Max
How could it not help? They don’t need a certified letter documenting a sniper to intervene. This wasn’t Dallas with tall buildings surrounding the plaza. It was a handful of buildings of which the SS sniper had no difficulty locating and killing the man once the shooting started.
The fact that suspect got a clear line of sight implies a hole in the security detail. It seems to be an M shaped roof. We don’t know if Secret Service snipers had or could have a line of sight on the shooter before he poked his head over the top of the roof to shoot at Trump, do we?
~Max
It would be pretty obvious if they were alerted ahead of time particularly given how fast the target was acquired and eliminated.
We don’t know how many seconds “ahead of time” could have been, and as I just mentioned, we don’t know if suspect was exposed to existing sniper positions before opening fire.
For all we know the reason the threat was neutralized so quickly may have been because the officer did properly alert SS, and that actually saved lives. How can we know at this point?
~Max
Trump wasn’t tackled by the SS until after he was shot. If there was a radio call of a man with a gun he should have been escorted out surrounded by SS. If an officer made a call before climbing the building then we’re not talking a couple of seconds.
It’s all conjecture at this point but there’s a pretty big security lapse considering how few buildings were involved.