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Secret Service screw-ups

The New Neo Posted on by

The revelations continue as we learn more and more about the obvious failures of the Secret Service last Saturday. It is incompetence of such a depth and breadth that one can’t help but think that, at the very least, some of those doing the planning and preparation didn’t deeply care if Trump lived or died.

We all dodged a bullet that day – not just Trump:

Here’s a list of nine failures that led to the failed attempt. I’m especially interested in number seven, and in learning the protocol for taking out a shooter before a shot is fired. I’m assuming there is such a protocol, but I don’t know. From now on, there had better be, and it can’t amount to letting the would-be assassin get shots off before he is killed.

Another fact that came out yesterday is that, although (as number nine points out) security at the rally last week did not include any drones, the shooter had surveyed the venue by drone earlier that day:

Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks programmed the drone to fly over the Butler Farm Showgrounds before his assassination attempt on the former president, 78, law enforcement officials briefed on the incident said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Investigators also believe he flew the remotely piloted aircraft around the campaign rally site more than once as he mapped out the course of the attack, further adding to the Secret Service’s stunning failure to protect Trump. …

A drone was later found in Crooks’ car after he was shot dead when he opened fire on Trump. …

He had reportedly staked the farm out days before Trump arrived and is believed to have also used a bike to explore the vast grounds of the Butler County Farm Show.

How do they know about the bike? Is there surveillance video that they’re only now viewing?

Comments

Secret Service screw-ups — 82 Comments

  1. Where is the line between incompetence and negligence? And when is that negligence criminal?

  3. I do attribute most of this to DEI usurping merit at all levels of the Secret Service, and many other organizations/corporations as well.

    This looks so much like what has happened to Disney, which can no longer keep its parks maintained and customers satisfied nor make enjoyable film entertainment — flop after flop while the creators raise the DEI banner to justify their work and vilify their unhappy audience.

    IMO there is no way back from this without firing the top levels and resetting for merit.

  4. Taken from question 2 in the Breitbart list, a quote and bolded highlight:

    Bongino said on his July 18, 2024, podcast episode that sources have told him that local police snipers were put inside because they were snipers versus counter-snipers and believed they could do the job from the second floor of the building. This leads to the question — why weren’t counter-snipers watching out for potential snipers on the rooftop?

    There was no “2nd floor” on the building from which Crooks took his shots. The second floor is on a buildiing directly adjacent to it, to the north-west of Crooks’ location. If, as presumed here, a law enforcement sniper/anti-sniper team is behind a window on that second floor, merely advancing to the window (open, I assume) sticking their head outside and looking a mere 20 to 30 feet away toward Crooks’ they’d have seen him, and his weapon. Apparently, however, if this supposed “team” was inside that window, they never did stick their head(s) out and look to clear the adjacent rooftop. Explanations are in order.

  5. Have there been any coordinated press conferences with Secret Service, Homeland Security, and local authorities? Why is information trickling out the way it is? I suppose admitting a casual and incompetent approach is hard to do — but this was the near-assassination of a former and probably future president. And it was a “mass shooting,” with one dead and at least three injured, which is usually a big deal also.

  6. Hard for the Govt to keep a lid on things, with so many phone cameras everywhere. That is the info trickling out, on Facebook, TT, X and other platforms. Mismanagement and incompetence is so glaring. I bet even potential Dem replacement for the Biden/Harris team are having second thoughts, having to depend on Govt for protection.

  7. I think I’m moving towards the malignant neglect realm from the purely FUBAR realm.

  8. for having a range finder, which looks like a small pair of binoculars but are often used by hunters or the military to identify targets. — Breitbart article

    Well, it kinda sorta looks like small binoculars, but not really. Maybe the expensive military finders are good for identifying, but the cheaper ones I’ve seen are not particularly good viewing optics. Once the distance is obtained with a rangefinder, one may decide whether to shoot or not. But the primary function of having the distance is to dial in a rifle scope.

    Here is what one looks like. Note: Only one eyepiece.
    https://vortexoptics.com/crossfire-hd-1400-laser-rangefinder.html

  9. physicsguy: Could there be any further instances of incompetence that “they” are still trying to hide? If not, they’re trying to hide something far worse, probably in hopes that it can be hidden until another rigged election will make it disappear.

    It is not possible to be too cynical with the current Administration.

  10. Sdferr: Speculating a little here but my take is that a sniper team that gets near — or protruding outside — a window just brings attention to themselves. Far better, I would think, to stay back a little from the window (maybe as much as 5 feet) with the window open.

    I agree with everyone who thinks Cheatle needs to be fired — two days ago. and probably Mayorkas too. And the DEI policy at the Secret Service needs to be stopped. Diversity is our strength only when we can afford to have some members of the team be less adept than other members. In other words, when we can afford to have less than the the very best. This was not one of those times.

  11. There was no “2nd floor” on the building from which Crooks took his shots. The second floor is on a buildiing directly adjacent to it, to the north-west of Crooks’ location.

    While I am skeptical of conspiracy theories, this video provides some interesting information about that window, noting that it was open, and arguing that the angle from there to Trump is a more likely path of the bullet. But you can also see the clear view it had of Crooks on the roof.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6hTbo6IKSI

  12. Just an Infantry shooter–iron sights, M14, M16, M60. Not interested enough to buy my own ammo.
    Some civilian range time.
    Presuming Crooks was aiming for a head shot, he had a scope (who doesn’t?) since you can’t otherwise see a guy’s head at 150 yards unless he’s skylined.
    Given the time it seems he spent checking the place out, the idea that he had to prepare to get his distance right, plus or minus a couple of yards, at that distance, doesn’t seem plausible unless…he’s kind of fixated on Doing The Thing, as others have said, possibly on the spectrum.
    Or, if scopeless, he was aiming at the center of mass and went high.

    As to the screw ups; Doing something stupid implies knowing better or should know better to do or not do a particular thing in order to avoid a bad result.
    Why would one not do as protocol requires? Resources times the likelihood of the Bad Thing happening times the Badness of the Bad Thing. If you ignore the last, in this case, the likelihood of somebody going after a figure at Trump’s level with a long gun is…..happened sixty years ago. And since it’s so freaking unlikely, the Badness is irrelevant, since it’s not going to happen anyway, right? So we’re just going through the motions, here.
    Been said the team was “short” on….qualified personnel, possibly time, did not have experience to deal with local LEO, nor to command local resources (mover a crane which somebody has sitting around into a likely sight line, so forth) and pulling it all together on short rations with little experience is a heck of a chore with everything else going on. And it’s been sixty years, and we have these snipers, and…..
    You’re going to go to a particular building and give the locals a hard time about not being on the roof of their building, just in case? If you bothered to inspect (if it hasn’t been inspected, it’s been neglected) at all.
    So, understanding how things work, this is understandable. Not defensible, but institutions are not perfect.
    Do we know how many other times steps have been skipped and nothing happened? That group commanders might know about by informal communications?

    Still, Crooks got to the right place without, from what little we know, much hesitation. How did he know he wasn’t going to be under surveillance? There?

    Still, if you watch hearings, you’ll know federal big shots lie like rugs–“The border is secure!” And there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

    A conspiracy theory comes about when a very big deal happens which requires the very unlikely coincidence of two or possibly many more events unlikely in themselves whose result is seen to benefit an entity which is seen to be in a position to manage the aforesaid coinciding. The less likely is the coincidence of the coincidings, the more it looks as if it were managed. Probability theory only goes so far before somebody raises the eyebrow.

    So, while the number of times a similar sight line has been left unattended is unknown, it must be fantastically small, given the superhuman efficiency of the USSS (as advertised) And the number of times a guy with a rifle has gone after a similar figure is also small. Each of these is a very tiny quantity, far less than one, the result of whose multiplication is vanishingly, invisibly small. But here we are.

  13. My husband bought a range finder back when we used to play golf (before his knee surgery). But I think, if we wanted to see a distant speaker at a rally, we’d take our binoculars. The range finder looks suspicious on its face in that context.

  16. I’m interested in number 6. What is the protocol for a suspicious person on a roof lying in a prone position?

    The classic plain clothed Secret Service Agent has a suit, sunglasses, and the ubiquitous earpiece listening to communications. Did no one in the command center discuss the suspicious person on a building? If they did, why did none of the agents near the stage either inform Trump before taking the stage, or take the stage to put themselves between the suspicious person and the protectee? Why stay on the ground, out of view and obstruction until the first shot?

  17. I also want to know how/where Crooks learned to make remotely detonated IEDs.

  18. Richard Aubrey,

    Good summation of relevant facts and data. And your point about multiplying miniscule ratios is apt. That is when things start to seem so unlikely they become unbelievable; “what are the small odds this will happen AT THE SAME TIME as this thing with small odds will happen AT THE SAME TIME this other thing with small odds happens…

  19. I’ve said this before, so apologies for the repetition.

    There’s a joke(?) going around, but I don’t know who started it:

    “The Secret Service has failed, but did they fail to protect Trump. or did they fail to kill him?”

  20. Here’s a very good analysis with video of where the shooter was, where the shots went, and it even debunks the water tower truthers:

    https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1814300337299165562

    It looks like the first shot hit Trump, hit a railing on the grandstand to his left, and then hit the hydraulic line of a forklift behind that. The rest of the shots hit other people. All the other people were in line with the shooter aiming at Trump.

    Of course, none of this accounts for the shots from the Houthi drone, the guy shooting from under the manhole cover two miles away, and the shots from the FOBS space attack system, all coordinated by the FBI chick sitting right behind Trump.

    The reason the SS gal was so flustered and couldn’t reholster her pistol was because it was her job to shoot the FBI chick, and she failed. She knew then that she would be next on the target list to be killed by the Patriot Front Khaki Patrol.

  21. As is said, “once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is enemy action.”

    Seems to me that there were far more than three f-ups and instances of neglect of basic security procedures, all—curiously—going in one direction, that of making it possible, as well as easier, for the assassin to get into position, and to take his shots.

    To view this mounting collection of evidence as just an unfortunate series of many odd and unlikely coincidences strains credulity.

    Yes, “shit happens, “ but in this instance there is just far too much shit piling up.

    As the news of these many f-ups keep rolling in, a much more likely conclusion to be drawn from this “malign neglect” is, “enemy action.”

  22. Gordon Scott, there seem to be significant numbers of crazed individuals who actually believe some of the things in your last two paragraphs.

  23. Rufus
    Thanks.
    Forgot another point. . To the extent the kid was on The Spectrum–possibility raised by circumstantial and some reports–he has a strong probability to trust. I’ve worked with some families in that situation. You could sell these folks anything and the girls would come with you after ten minutes’ conversation.
    If I’m on the right path, kid was easy to manipulate. Also, at a certain point on the spectrum, consequences for actions do not exist.

  24. Kate, yes. See also Project 2025. One cannot make it up fast enough.

    Surprising to me is how many “experts” declare it couldn’t have happened in certain way. But nearly always the “experts” turn out to not have expertise, and they either get facts wrong or deliberately lie to support their cases.

    Some college professor was claiming 9/11 conspiracy. When he dragged out the truncated quote from an eyewitness who said “it hit the Pentagon like a cruise missile,” I pointed out his falsehood. “I saw the plane hit the building. It hit the Pentagon like a cruise missile.”

    I also pointed out the approximately 5000 other people on the roads who saw the plane hit. He hemmed, hawed and changed the subject, and later in his lecture again said a cruise missile hit the Pentagon. After all, there’s money to be made.

  25. The essay by James Meigs (in City Journal)** is so far the best discussion I’ve read of the various possible failures on July 13. It serves as serious counterpoint to the various conspiracy theories, but, IMHO, it only balances them out; it does not conclusively negate them. Even Meigs’ citation of disaster science (i.e. series of small innocuous errors culminating in a disaster-level event) does not answer Alfred Hitchcock’s contention that the perfect crime is committed every day (it’s a crime that is never identified as a crime in the first place), nor Ann Althouse’s observation about how the conspiracy theories seem to address Occam’s Razor moreso than other explanations so-far.

    Now the prompted question: Do conspiracy theories (vs. conspiracy fact) always seem to be the simplest solutions?

    **https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-the-secret-service-failed?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cjdaily

  26. well that seems implausible, the woman in question lori carney was just a spectator for one, but for an agency that spends critical resources going after
    people who make nasty tweets about Joe Biden, the priorities seem ill placed,

  28. The Goldfinger quote is

    “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”

  30. Re: 9/11 I always ask missile theory idiots –
    Then what happened to the planes and the people on them?

  31. I’m checking the box for negligence/incompetence. I.e., a negligence/incompetence cascade. As a military historian I have become well familiar with countless instances of military incompetence so glaring that they beggar belief. Viewing such incompetence in hindsight, it is hard to be believe that it was not attributable to deliberate, applied malice.

    But this is almost never the case. The series of intelligence failures leading to the events of 9-11 provide a case in point. So too do the events of December 7-8 at Pearl Harbor and Clark Field in the Philippines. On Crete in May 1941 the Comonwealth forces GOC, Maj.-Gen. Bernard Frey knew, thanks to Ultra decrypts, the exact minute when the Germans would launch their airborne assault on the island. He knew as well the Germans’ objectives. Yet he and his subordinates contrived, through a series of bad decisions — i.e., incompetence — to lose the battle (which they should have won).

    The phenomena of the negligence/incompetence cascade has produced countless studies. Two of the best, in my opinion, are Barbara Tuchman’s “The March of Folly” and “Lethal Incompetence: Studies in Political and Military Decision-Making” by Geoffrey T. Bordin.

  32. Evelyn Waugh had a ground view of that disaster, if memory serves, that he related in one of his series,

  33. “and Clark Field in the Philippines”

    What was the intelligence failure vs plain bad luck?

  36. @ Rufus > “what are the small odds this will happen AT THE SAME TIME as this thing with small odds will happen AT THE SAME TIME this other thing with small odds happens”

    Back in the seventies, when bombs on planes were the Big Thing, a college friend shared this story (joke?) about a statistics professor who would never fly to conferences or for vacations because he feared being on a plane with a bomb.
    So a colleague of his was astonished one day to find the prof in line with him to board a flight to some event. When queried, the formerly fearful prof told his friend that he had solved the problem. “I calculated the odds of there being one bomb on a plane, and did not like them,” he explained, “but when I calculated the odds of there being TWO bombs, the probability was so small that I felt confident
    flying. So,” he patted his briefcase gently, “I brought my own bomb!”

    Math students will, of course, spot the fallacy here, but it gave us a good laugh.

  37. Chases Eagles:

    MacArthur and his top commanders were informed immediately of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, even while it was underway, and well in advance of the Japanese attack on Clark Field. There were steps they could have and should have taken to avoid the ensuing catastrophe. Needless to say, they didn’t take them. MacArthur is the culprit here. He lost his nerve, and his loss of nerve manifested as incompetence that resulted in the near destruction of American airpower even though they were given plenty of advance warning of the Japanese attack on Clark Field.

  38. @ Mike K & T – The City Journal post by James Meigs is certainly thought provoking.
    IMO, some of the aspects of disaster science that he discusses could also apply to the the failure of Israel to prevent the October 7 attack.

    ALL of the criticisms he raises need to be addressed by the agencies involved, and by Congress as well.

  39. The story now is that a much less well-known Homeland Security agency was handling much of the event. They are less experienced. I wonder how well they co-ordinated with the Secret Service and the local police. The switcheroo made screw-ups more likely. Maybe Jill Biden drew away too many of the real USSS agents for her event on the same day.

    “The Secret Service has failed, but did they fail to protect Trump. or did they fail to kill him?”

    The version I heard was, “Whether the Secret Service was trying to protect Trump or trying to kill him, the phrase ‘close enough for government work’ applies.”

  40. Specifically what intelligence failures? What incompetence, what negligence with respect to the attack on Clark Field?

  41. “IT’S NOT A FOG OF CONFUSION, IT’S A FOG OF DISSEMBLING AND OBFUSCATION . . . Regardless of how it happened, everyone who was responsible for keeping it from happening should be fired, since, you know, it did happen.”[Instapundit @ 6:23]

    I think Glenn Reynolds sums it up quite succinctly, except I would stipulate “at the federal level.”

    Furthermore, the more it looks like someone is covering their own behind and blaming someone else, the more fuel there is for conspiracy theories.

  43. PS to The City Journal post by James Meigs on disaster science: I wonder if any of the researchers in the field have had a go at the Uvalde school shooting?

  45. Here’s my Secret Service story:

    I worked with the USSS on a vice-presidential visit (Spiro Agnew) to Nairobi. I started working with them about four days before the VP arrived in country. The day before he arrived I was walking around the Hilton Hotel, where he would be staying, and noticed there was a mezzanine floor that could only be reached by stairs, and when I climbed up there, I could see it had an unrestricted view of the area the car with the VP would pull in to discharge him. There was no sign of SS cordoning off the mezzanine area.

    I went to the SS Ops center and told them about it. One of them accompanied me to the place in question and, after looking around, said something like “well it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

    I watched the room on the mezzanine when Agnew arrived or otherwise had a vehicular movement. No SS presence at any time.

    Fortunately no one wanted to kill the VP, (no thanks to the USSS) and he ended up flying on to his next stop two days later.

    Needless to say, I was unimpressed.

  46. There are just too many instances of many parts of the Federal government, the Congress, the Court system, the Intelligence Community, the DOJ, and the FBI–twisting, or ignoring law, precedent, and procedure–to act against President Trump and his supporters to list here.

    Given this history of “prior bad acts”–what are the odds that this monumental Secret Service screw up was just that; a stupid, innocent screwup on a massive and comprehensive scale?

    Why, given this history–would anyone think that the idea of this attempted assassination being facilitated–passively or actively–by some elements from within these agencies to be just too farfetched, “a bridge too far”?

  47. how does that sherlock holmes line from hound of the baskervilles go,

  48. miguel cervantes, are you perhaps thinking of the famous line: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” That comes from “The Sign of Four”.

  49. Chases Eagles:

    A lengthy essay would be required to provide a full accounting of the debacle at Clark Field. I don’t want to write it. I’m not a fan of over-long blog posts. There’s no paucity of information on this subject. Give it a Google and you’ll find plenty. Suffice to say for now that when MacArthur was informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor he took no immediate action. He proved hesitant, indecisive, and unsure as to what should be done. Why? That remains at issue. Many historians assert that he had a nervous breakdown. But there were other factors at play. What it all amounted to was a shit-show of incompetence, stupidity, and failure at all levels. Give it a Goog.

  50. Starting with Lincoln through Cleveland, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan you’d think that the SS would have a standing rule on access to the President. Either they know the rule and follow it OR they ignore the rule when they want Regicide. After 160 years of protecting the President you’d think they had it down. If they don’t, they’re part of the plot.

  51. Building on my comment at 7:17 above–

    Former CIA officer Jason Hanson’s take on the attempted assassination of President Trump is that some enemy intelligence agency likely introduced a “honey trap” woman into the shooter’s life, got him infatuated with her, and she pushed him to carry out the assassination attempt.*

    Could that conceivably have happened?

    Well, since the government is the source of most of the information on the shooter, what can we really know for certain, and how will we know if the government wants to withhold certain information from us?

    How will we know if the picture they paint for us is accurate and complete?

    It’s all about “trust,” and right about now I’m fresh outta trust for anything our government or the “authorities” say about this assassination attempt and the shooter.

    * See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpqPcfJXm9Yrump

  52. IrishOtter49,
    I do not need to google because I have a large library and I have written my own detailed timeline of the events of that day.
    examples

    0000 The SCR-270B radar at Iba Field detects unidentified aircraft over the South China Sea. 3d Pursuit attempts radio guided intercept and this time when voice range is exceeded attempts to use Morse code but this too failed. Radar showed that the interceptors intersected the unidentified flight’s path but the pilots were not able to see the other aircraft in the poor visibility. The 20th Pursuit at Clark waits on ground alert.

    …

    0800 The SCR-270B radar at Iba Field detects unidentified aircraft over Lingayen Gulf. Unaware that they have been delayed by fog, this is presumed to be the main JNAF bomber force aimed at Clark. 24th Pursuit Group (Maj Grover) sends the 17th and 20th Pursuit to intercept north of Clark and the 35th Pursuit to cover Clark itself. Shortly after, all flyable B-17s were ordered into the air from Clark. This left 4 B-17s at Clark (1 being painted in OD, 2 under minor repairs and 1 under major repair. This last B-17 was one of the first 9 sent to the Philippines September and had struck another plane on first landing at Clark and had been under repair ever since).

    …

    1240 The Japanese Naval Air Forces attack Iba Field. Fifty-three bombers drop 486 60-kg and 26 250-kg bombs. Six P-40s from the 3rd Pursuit Squadron are landing to refuel and two are destroyed by bombs (2LT Root KIA)

  53. Re: Odds / Math / Bullets

    AesopFan, Rufus T. Firefly:

    I’m reminded of this golden exchange from the WW I season of Blackadder:
    ___________________________

    Blackadder: Baldrick, what are you doing out there?
    Baldrick: I’m carving something on this bullet, sir.
    Blackadder: What are you carving?
    Baldrick: I’m carving “Baldrick”, sir.
    Blackadder: Why?
    Baldrick: It’s a cunning plan, actually.
    Blackadder: Of course it is.
    Baldrick: You see, you know they say that somewhere there’s a bullet with your name on it?
    Blackadder: Yes?
    Baldrick: Well, I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I’d never get hit by it… ‘cos I won’t ever shoot myself.
    Blackadder: Oh, shame.

    –“Blackadder — A bullet with my name on it – BBC” (1989)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8wdynZ0iWg
    ___________________________

    Sounds foolproof to me.

  54. @ miguel & John — possibly the line from this story is the one miguel is referring to:
    “A phrase from Arthur Conan *Doyle’s Sherlock *Holmes story ‘Silver Blaze’ (1892). Holmes refers to ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’, namely that a watchdog did not bark during the theft of a racehorse from a stable, suggesting that the dog probably knew the thief.”

    https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199567454.001.0001/acref-9780199567454-e-583

    IOW, the USSS at Butler didn’t “bark” at Crooks because they (for unknown elements of “them”) knew who he was.

    Because of the dog in the quoted line, the Silver Blaze line is often thought to have come from the Hound of the Baskervilles.

    “Holmes explains to Watson that Jack Stapleton was really Rodger Baskerville II, the secret son of Sir Charles’ youngest brother. A physical and spiritual throwback to Sir Hugo Baskerville, Rodger II had bought a savage black hound and painted it with phosphorus to make it look diabolical; either by fright or direct attack, he hoped the dog would remove all the other heirs so that he could inherit the Baskerville fortune.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles

    It might be argued that some of the Democrats are attempting to sic a metaphorical “hound” on some of the other Democrats, but I would have to think about it some more to put names to the factions.

    Not quite so elementary as the Silver Blaze parallel.

  57. I’ve been a bit out of the loop…but are we seeing any regular briefings or daily published updates from the FBI, USSS, or local LEOs from the assassination investigation? Actual investigation findings?

    Are we getting only drip drip drip leaks & speculation or more substantive stuff?

  58. The really really big mystery – if this incident is true – is that a police officer climbed the roof where the shooter was located, saw that he had a rifle, and he did nothing at all, aside from backing down.
    This all happened before the shooter fired a single shot.
    And the police officer’s superior claims the police officer was a “hero.”

    Give me a F’n break.

    Don’t police officers carry guns?
    And what is the reason that this police officer did not sound an alarm??

    This story is really unbelievable unless one thinks all the security personnel – police and SS – wanted the shooter to kill Trump.

  59. Anyone in that metal building knew and could hear someone was on that roof. Just walking up there creates a racket.
    Investigations shouldn’t start at top, work from bottom up.
    Start with the Overwatch Team, any police who found body, brass from weapon to know how many shots he fired, police in area. People who have video of gunman before he fired.
    Then question the DIE boss.

  60. John Tyler @ 6:36 a.m., the story as I have read it is that the local policeman climbed on the shoulders of another officer and, hands on the edge of the roof, peered over the edge to see if anyone was up there. The gunman swung around and pointed the rifle at him. Not having a weapon in his hand, the officer dropped down. The gunman immediately began firing at Trump. Within seconds he stopped firing because he was dead. The officers did call in an alarm immediately upon hitting the ground but the assault was already underway.

  61. Kate, what’s a little fishy is that it’s hard to believe Crooks could have “immediately” begun firing so accurately at Trump after first pointing the weapon at the cop. He would have had to swing the rifle back toward Trump, position himself, locate Trump in the sight, and then fire. Maybe a trained sniper could do that in 5 seconds, but I suspect it would have taken Crooks longer. Where were the snipers in all of that time (never mind in the many minutes Crooks was up on the roof before the cops tried to climb up.

    I don’t blame the cop for ducking back down (and apparently he fell and injured himself), but I wouldn’t call him a hero either.

  62. Jimmy.
    Maybe Crooks got lucky. Setting up for a center of mass shot at that range takes marginally less time than for a head shot.

  63. Chases Eagles:

    I figured you knew all this and your questions represented an attempt to provoke controversy. Bad faith on your part. Sorry I didn’t rise to take the bait,

    I stand by what I said; nothing you wrote in your post contradicts what I wrote. You leave out a lot which I only touched upon. You merely provided an incomplete timeline; you did not, e.g., address the issue of MacArthur’s incompetence and the incompetence of his subordinates as the cause of the failures listed on your timeline. But of course to go into detail on that score would, as I said, require a lengthy dissertation. Which I eschew: itt’s rude.

    But I’m glad you had a chance to show off your knowledge.

  64. Incidentally, some time ago I conducted oral history interviews of many of the veterans of the 192nd Tank Battalion, whose M3 Stuart light tanks were parked on the edge of Clark Field’s runway on December 8. I recorded hundreds of hours of recorded oral history interviews with veterans of the 192nd and 194th tank battalions chronicling their experiences in the Luzon/Bataan campaign, the Death March, and captivity in Japan. This was pursuant to a book I planned to write on the subject. I haven’t written the book . . . yet. On my bucket list of things to do, when my health is sufficiently improved to where I have the energy to get it done.

    BTW, one of favorite on episodes in that effort was hearing the stories of two of the 192nd’s tank commanders, whose vehicles were parked side-by-side and who both claimed one to have shot down, with their turret machine guns, of the few strafing Japanese fighter aircraft destroyed by ground fire that day. They disputed the claim for the kill to literally their dying day. One of them became a Jesuit priest after the war. Do you know who they were?

  65. John Tyler, Kate, Jimmy, one version of the scene I’ve heard is that the cop indeed stood on the shoulders of another to reach the edge of the roof and then hoisted himself up to see the roof, saw the shooter, removed one hand from the roof and drew his weapon, and then promptly lost his grip on the roof and fell to the ground. (this makes him an attempted hero in my book.)
    If he was injured in the fall he might not have been able to sound the alarm. If this happened on the side of the building facing away from the SS counter snipers, it’s entirely possible they didn’t see anything.
    And, Jimmy, depends on the meaning of the word “immediately” in this context. I seem to recall that the police encounter happened at 6:02 and that the first shots were taken at 6:12. That sounds like an improbably long time so in this case I think immediately means somewhere between 0 seconds and 10 minutes. (but there have been so many contradictory descriptions of the various moments that make up that day that I am probably wrong on both timestamps. I’m sure the SS, FBI and DHS will eventually provide us with all the confirmed, factual information about that day. After all, didn’t they recently ask for an additional 75 years to release the details of the JFK assassination; you know, just to make sure they had everything accurate?)

  67. For those who continue to insist that this was all coincidental negligence, let me ask you a question. When the second plane hit the Twin Towers, did you think “Wow, what a coincidence” or did you know, like everyone else?

  68. IrishOtter49:

    You wrote a book, but didn’t want to write another long, long, reply. ChasesEagles didn’t write a long enough response (another book) to your comment about McArthur so now ChasesEagles is acting in bad faith?

    Otay. Ego may be stuck in the grill.

  69. physicsguy,

    I’ve seen several clips from CNN coverage of the Republican Convention that was quite open and fair. I agree, something seems to be up at CNN.

  70. Leland writes, “I also want to know how/where Crooks learned to make remotely detonated IEDs.”

    Leaving aside that we have no information on how well constructed that bomb was, it is an unfortunate fact that is not difficult to do and is well within the capabilities of even a moderate geek of the right inclination.

    Years ago I was at a McDonald’s and there was a group of young teenagers—3 boys and a girl, if I recall. They had ordered a Happy Meal and one of them was struggling to assemble or operate whatever toy had come with it. He kept saying, “I can’t believe I can make a bomb but I can’t figure this out.” I thought, “that’s because it’s not that impressive a feat, kid.”

    (No, I didn’t speak up or report him. He seemed like a silly nerd, had friends, and was probably trying to impress the girl. But I probably should have.)

  71. I suspect that the failure will turn out to be largely a matter of the extreme ‘safety culture’ which has overtaken so many organizations, combined with bureaucratic rigidity.

    In 2010, a woman was left at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft for six hours, despite the fact that the human and technical capabilities to rescue her were available. Apparently, safety rules banned firefighters from saving her.

    A senior fire officer at the scene admitted that crews could only listen to her cries for help, after she fell down the 60ft shaft, because regulations said their lifting equipment could not be used on the public. A memo had been circulated in Strathclyde Fire and Rescue stations months previously stating that it was for use by firefighters only.

    The woman, who had two children, died as she was (finally) being rescued.
    This particular example was from the UK, but there are plenty of US examples as well. In Minnesota in 2017, a fire alarm went off and a 14-year-old girl had to get out of the swimming pool wearing nothing but her wet bathing suit. Wind chill was high. She was not allowed to take refuge in one of the many cars in the parking lot because of a school policy forbidding students from sitting in a faculty member’s car.

    As the other children were keeping Kayona alive by huddling around her and giving her things to put on over the bathing suit, the teachers were working their way through the bureaucracy. After a freezing ten minutes, an administrator finally gave permission for the soaking wet, freezing Kayla to sit in a car in full view of everybody.”

    There are dozens of cases like these, some of which I plan to cite in a post. So I have no difficulty believing that they *really did* make a ‘safety’ decision based on the slope of the roof.

  72. There have been numerous examples over the years of school officials refusing to accept inhalers from other kids as a student struggles to live because he had forgotten his own and had a severe, life-threatening asthma attack. At least once, this involved a school nurse taking it upon herself to physically restrain a kid from helping.

  74. the teachers were working their way through the bureaucracy. After a freezing ten minutes, an administrator finally gave permission for the soaking wet, freezing Kayla to sit in a car in full view of everybody.”
    ==
    The teachers should have stashed the girl in someone’s car and if the administrator objected, dared him to put a letter in their files.

  75. At least once, this involved a school nurse taking it upon herself to physically restrain a kid from helping.
    ==
    A nurse who should have been relieved of her license. “Safety culture” is not an active agent. People are.

  76. Consider the homer lea notion about an attack on hawaii the movement of the japanese fleet the pupov report about italian dive bombers in taranto was not widely circulated

  77. Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service man, has been getting info from insiders about the DEI campaign that has been going on there for some years. He claims that the SS has turned down applicants who had Special Forces experience and instead hired college graduates with the proper ethnic, sexual, and political characteristics.

    This DEI campaign seems to have turned an elite protective agency into an organization that is no longer elite or highly competent.

    Since all this DEI hiring got rolling under the Obama administration, think about what it means for the executive agencies in general. Bad Juju.

  78. This pressure on the Secret Service and Homeland Security is getting really heavy. We need to change the subject.

    What story can we throw out there? And don’t say Joe quits!

    Oh, you said it.

  79. physicsguy and Rufus T. Firefly: some even-handed coverage from CNN wasn’t the only surprise about the RNC. (though I suspect that most of CNN convention coverage was not even-handed, at least this coverage was even-handed.)

    One thing that surprised me about the RNC was that I was expecting the loony left to cause some trouble. Didn’t happen, perhaps because the loony left was moved far enough from the convention site and apparently was not permitted to march towards the convention site.

    The X-Twitter coverage about a lefty demonstrator at Milwaukee- a LGBMTBLT fatso with the rainbow mask and the CCCP tattoo- was priceless. THEY’RE ONLY SCARED THAT PEOPLE WILL RESPOND TO THEIR VIOLENCE VIOLENTLY. They’re not against violence in general.

    “It’s a shame the person [sh**ter] missed”
    *Next breath*
    “I’m scared of political violence”

    “

  80. You all might enjoy this response to a supposed screenplay of a fictional thriller, curiously similar to the the assassination-attempt security-fiasco:
    https://x.com/BaronDestructo/status/1813725970915791217

    About the author, Joseph Mallozzi: “Showrunner/Executive Producer/Writer – Dark Matter, Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: Universe. Crime Show enthusiast.”

  81. Those three ponytails were moving a lot in a small space. The heads in which they were attached to were appeared to be confused, scared and worried.

  82. “…incompetence…”
    Um, no, NOT incompetence…of whatever depth, breadth, length, heft or weight you feel like giving it.

    Hold on! One indeed MIGHT call it “incompetence”…given Crooks’s “failure”….

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