London has Fallen just came out on Netflix, and after watching Gerard Butler protect Aaron Eckhart for 90 minutes, I started to wonder:
When is the last time anyone gave their life to protect the POTUS?
Agent Tim McCarthy was wounded in the 1981 Reagan shooting (along with James Brady and a DC cop).
The only Secret Service agent to die guarding a President was Leslie Coffelt, killed in 1950 by Puerto Rico separatists who attacked [del]the White House[/del] Blair House, where Truman was living while the White House was under reconstruction. He killed one of the attackers after being shot.
Coffelt was a member of the White House Police Force, a uniformed division of the Secret Service and not typically identified as an “agent.”
The White House Police Force was renamed the “Executive Protective Service,” in 1970 and then the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service in 1977.
This page calls him an agent. I’m not sure where to split the hair.
No cite, but I’d bet that it was one of those motorcycle cops getting involved in a traffic accident.
From the Service itself, the “Careers,” page:
Members of the Uniformed Division are “officers;” as opposed to “Special Agents.”
Considering the OP didn’t use the word “agent” at all, and that Coffelt’s death certainly seems to meet what the OP was asking, what is the point of this hijack?
+1
James Brady may not have been actively *trying * to protect the President but his taking the first shot of six fired at the President may have saved Reagan’s life. Brady, who was severely crippled after the shot, died years later. His death was ruled a homicide.
Chicago mayor Anton Cermak took a bullet that was allegedly meant for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though there’s some question of whether FDR was the intended target or if Cermak was actually the intended victim all along.
I don’t recall any of them being fatalities. Nixon famously talked to one of them as they waited for an ambulance. (And asked one of his notoriously off-key questions -“So, do you like the work?”)
I don’t agree it’s a hijack. The answer, “The only Secret Service agent to die guarding a President was Leslie Coffelt…” is not correct. He did die protecting the President, but he wasn’t a Secret Service agent. He was Officer Leslie Coffelt of the White House Police Force. It’s true that the White House Police Force was part of the Secret Service, but their uniformed personnel are “officers;” they are not styled “agents.”
That’s a very GQ-appropriate annotation.
Naturally, the “report this post,” button is available to you should you continue to believe this was a hijack.
Well, it’s clearly important to you that “agent” not be misused in this context, so you might want to take it up with CBS for using the wrong term on the page I cited.
I certainly think the meaning is understood in the context of answering this question, though.
I was always favorably impressed with the fact that the perp was apprehended, arraigned, tried, convicted and executed in a month. The trial switched midstream to a murder charge, Mr. Cermak wasn’t killed immediately.
Is Blair House soon to be a Trump hotel?
Jupiter, Florida, police officer Bruce St. Laurent was killed in an accident escorting Obama’s motorcade in September 2012.
Before that, Honolulu, Hawaii, police officer Steve Favela died similarly after an accident on motorcade duty for Bush, in November 2006.
[this was a hijack but not snark. I’m not sure about the old VP house, etc.]
A NYPD officer was injured while serving in the Vice President’s motorcade last year: https://www.yahoo.com/news/officer-injured-vp-bidens-motorcade-ny-184826471--politics.html?ref=gs
A Dallas motorcycle cop was injured in 2008 in a Hillary motorcade. The last paragraph here refers to some other incidents: Clinton motorcade officer dies after crash
A local motorcycle cop was injured (maybe killed?) while escorting JFK during his Presidency, too (not in Dallas on the day of the assassination). Can’t find it online, but I remember reading about it awhile back.
As for Blair House, no, it’s U.S. Government property and will not be sold to Trump or anyone else. Ditto the Vice President’s home.
Well considering one of the causes cited for the Iraq War was the fact that Saddam had targeted George Bush for assassination I guess you could say any soldier involved who died was technically dying to protect the president, or a former president anyway.