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topicnews · October 17, 2024

Secret Service ‘Complacent’ in Protecting Trump from Shooting: Report

Secret Service ‘Complacent’ in Protecting Trump from Shooting: Report

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WASHINGTON — The Secret Service has become bureaucratic and complacent and needs an overhaul, an independent review of the first assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump released Thursday said.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was shot in the ear on July 13 during a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bystander was killed before a Secret Service sniper killed the gunman.

The Secret Service acknowledged that it had failed in its mission to protect the former president, and acting Director Ronald Rowe promised reforms. A Senate report also criticized the agency’s performance.

President Joe Biden’s administration launched the independent review, which criticized the Secret Service and recommended a series of changes.

“The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent and static even as risks have multiplied and technology has evolved,” the report said. “Without this reform, the Independent Review Board believes another Butler can and will happen again.”

The bipartisan panel commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security included Janet Napolitano, a former secretary of the department; Frances Townsend, a former homeland security adviser in the George W. Bush administration; Mark Filip, a former federal judge; and David Mitchell, former Maryland State Police superintendent and former Delaware secretary of public safety and homeland security.

“We will fully consider the panel’s recommendations and take necessary actions to advance the Secret Service’s protective mission,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. These measures will respond not only to the mistakes before the shooting, but also to “systemic and fundamental problems underlying those mistakes,” he said.

The panel’s recommendations included overhead surveillance of outdoor events featuring presidential candidates, a situation report whenever a protected person comes to an event, and stationing at least one Secret Service officer with each state and local law enforcement agency at the event’s communications hub.

The panel said its recommendations should be implemented by March 2025 and assessed by October 2025, the panel recommended.

The Secret Service’s own review of the shooting found that on the day of the shooting, Secret Service officers were not using the same radios as local authorities, so warnings about a suspicious man with a rangefinder were delayed. The review also found that an agent assigned to monitor the drones at the event did not have the equipment and expertise to monitor unmanned aerial vehicles such as a drone that the gunman had at the scene hours before the shooting had flown.

Two months after the shooting in Pennsylvania, on September 15, a gunman hid undetected at a Trump golf course in Florida for nearly 12 hours before a Secret Service agent chased him away while Trump was golfing. The suspect was later arrested and charged with attempted murder.

The Secret Service said before Trump returned to Butler for another rally that the agency had made “comprehensive changes and improvements to our communications capabilities, resources and protections.” For example, the president is protected by bulletproof shields at outdoor events, and agents now work alongside local law enforcement officers at events.

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