Assassination attempt on trump

[TDub]

Secret Service and/or the golf clubs private security

[jfish26]

Secret Service and/or the golf clubs private security

And again I’d ask - what is the Secret Service reasonably supposed to do?

Trump decides these things on a whim and, being advised of the difficulty of securing his golf courses in particular, goes anyway.

There aren’t the physical resources - people - to line the perimeter of a golf course on no notice. I think it is unreasonable to expect the Secret Service to create a perfectly secure environment in these circumstances. And also to maintain the level of personnel and equipment to be able to do so on no notice.

[KUTradition]

i’d think, at minimum, a site sweep (on foot or via drone) would’ve been conducted

post-incident, the sheriff was adamant about providing the FBI and SS whatever resources they needed, and said the security at mar-a-lago was maxed out

where was all of that before? it’s kinda laughable to do all that AFTER the fact

[Back2Lawrence]

Trump decides these things on a whim and, being advised of the difficulty of securing his golf courses in particular, goes anyway.

I think the solution is hiring more resource officers.

[jfish26]

i’d think, at minimum, a site sweep (on foot or via drone) would’ve been conducted

post-incident, the sheriff was adamant about providing the FBI and SS whatever resources they needed, and said the security at mar-a-lago was maxed out

where was all of that before? it’s kinda laughable to do all that AFTER the fact

I still think this assumes more...omnipotence?...of the Secret Service than is realistic to expect.

And the protectee bears SOME responsibility for his own choices here.

Trump’s golf outings have long concerned Secret Service

Sunday’s episode in West Palm Beach made gravely apparent the security challenges at the former president’s private golf courses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... rotection/

Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads. Secret Service agents came armed with unusual evidence: not suspect profiles or spent bullet casings, but simple photographs taken by news crews of him golfing at his private club in Sterling, Va.

They reasoned that if photographers with long-range lenses could get the president in their sights while he golfed, so, too, could potential gunmen, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussions. Like most others interviewed for this story, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said. These preferences posed problems for his protection that former Trump aides, Secret Service officials and security experts said have only intensified in the years since he left the White House, as his security detail shrank and agents no longer maintained as extensive a perimeter guarding his movements. A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

[...]

On Monday, acting Secret Service director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. led a walk-through of the incident site, where the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, allegedly got a weapon within 500 yards of the former president. Rowe stressed in a news conference that the agency’s methods had worked in averting catastrophe, saying, “The protective methodologies of the Secret Service were effective yesterday.”

He also emphasized that Trump’s outing had been unplanned, forcing authorities to work on the fly.

“The president wasn’t even really supposed to go there,” Rowe said. “It was not on his official schedule.”

[...]

Trump pitches and putts at his own private clubs, elite enclaves that are nevertheless open to some members of the public and their guests. The courses are located in heavily trafficked communities. And while they’re surrounded by some fencing, the greens lack hardened perimeters. The result is a security nightmare for the Secret Service and their partners in local law enforcement, especially without the added staff and tools devoted to protecting the sitting president.

“At this level that he’s at right now, he’s not the sitting president,” the Palm Beach County sheriff, Ric L. Bradshaw, told reporters on Sunday. “If he was, we would have had the entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”

Bradshaw said the armed man was in an area of the shrubbery that allowed him to see two holes simultaneously — thereby eyeing both Trump and the agents moving one hole ahead of him in an elaborate protocol perfected over the years. Current and former agents said a countersniper team typically travels one hole ahead of Trump to scope out potential risks. Another countersniper team travels a hole behind to make sure there is no danger lurking in his wake as he moves forward on the fairway, protecting what’s called the “6 o’clock position.”

[...]

During Trump’s presidency, his golf outings were a constant source of consternation, according to former officials. Secret Service agents knew they wouldn’t be able to dissuade him from golfing, one former official said, so they asked him, mostly without success, to instead change his routine — at least to avoid going to the same club at the same time every week.

Trump’s practices differed from those of Barack Obama, who golfed frequently as president but usually at a course on the grounds of the military’s Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County or, while vacationing in Hawaii, on bases there. Such courses are insulated from public roadways, and anyone on the links would have undergone rigorous screening. Even high-ranking military officials were turned away if their tee times conflicted with a presidential outing, said Gage, the former agent, who worked protection for some of Obama’s golf trips at Andrews and in Hawaii.

[...]

[Fear] that golfing made presidents soft targets intensified when an armed man barreled through the gates of Augusta National while Ronald Reagan was playing the 16th hole. The intruder, Charles R. Harris, took five hostages and demanded to speak with Reagan. After the crisis, Reagan gave up golfing except for at the private course on the grounds of the Sunnylands Estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., owned at the time by his friends Walter and Leonore Annenberg, according to a 2005 book by a former longtime Secret Service agent, Joseph Petro.

“He said that he was giving up golf purposely because he was concerned about putting other people at unnecessary risk,” Petro wrote in the book “Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service.”

[KUTradition]

i’m fine disagreeing on this

i don’t think it’s that much of an ask to have done a preemptive sweep at some point within those ~12 hours, regardless of the venue

edit: but, i also wholeheartedly agree that trump’s own behavior/decisions makes the protective tasks notably more difficult

[twocoach]

i’m fine disagreeing on this

i don’t think it’s that much of an ask to have done a preemptive sweep at some point within those ~12 hours, regardless of the venue

edit: but, i also wholeheartedly agree that trump’s own behavior/decisions makes the protective tasks notably more difficult

They would inevitably find themselves in a position where they are arresting lawful gun owners who are just enjoying their right to Open Carry in the state. Labeling them as dangerous risks kinda shoots their entire 2A argument in the foot.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

reports are that he may have been posted up waiting for upwards of 12 hours

nobody did a sweep ahead of time?

You would think they would but..... Who do you feel should be/should have been responsible for the sweep? Local law enforcement? Secret Service? State law enforcement? FBI? Private security?
Some of the above, all of the above?

any of those you mention?

I would think all of the above. Whether it be in cahoots or independently.
If the guy was in the bushes for 12 hours and a COMPLETE "sweep" of the premisses (including the perimeter) was made within 12 hours of Trump golfing, then someone dropped the ball.
Here is the crazy thing. I truly believe the majority of the time the SS has protection down to a science.
I know first hand that they think of and do things that very few people would realize they think of and do. That being said, I'm am a firm believer of - resourceful people do resourceful things. There can be 10,000 successful things the SS does to protect the President but if someone can think of one single thing that the SS has not done to prepare and protect the President, that's all it takes for a failure.

[randylahey]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

[twocoach]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

If they did an investigation into how a convicted felon got their hands on an AK47 in Florida, they would find that a gunowner in Florida can resell their gun on the secondary market with ZERO requirement to run any sort of background check but I doubt they want to be honest about how that put a gun into the hands of a mentally ill felon.

I would like to see a Dem Congress member to propose a widescale gun control bill and call it the "Protect Donald Trump Act" and make it illegal in all states to sell a gun without a background check and make GOP congress members vote against it.

[jhawks99]

Look out guys, Rhonda is breaking out the white boots.

[jfish26]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

You're so close. Do it. DO IT.

[twocoach]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

You're so close. Do it. DO IT.

Florida GOP voters don't want their tax dollars used to feed and educate kids but they are OK with this waste of time and money?

[jfish26]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

You're so close. Do it. DO IT.

Florida GOP voters don't want their tax dollars used to feed and educate kids but they are OK with this waste of time and money?

Starting from the conclusion and working backwards is not without its sacrifices.

[Sparko]

Polarizing and dangerous men who whip up lynch mobs and hatred need to relax too. And in safe acreages to golf. The call always seems to be from inside his house.
.

[randylahey]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

If they did an investigation into how a convicted felon got their hands on an AK47 in Florida, they would find that a gunowner in Florida can resell their gun on the secondary market with ZERO requirement to run any sort of background check but I doubt they want to be honest about how that put a gun into the hands of a mentally ill felon.

I would like to see a Dem Congress member to propose a widescale gun control bill and call it the "Protect Donald Trump Act" and make it illegal in all states to sell a gun without a background check and make GOP congress members vote against it.

Good point, the gun was obtained illegally. As I've always said, criminals don't care about laws. Someone willing to kill isn't going to be deterred by gun laws

[jfish26]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

If they did an investigation into how a convicted felon got their hands on an AK47 in Florida, they would find that a gunowner in Florida can resell their gun on the secondary market with ZERO requirement to run any sort of background check but I doubt they want to be honest about how that put a gun into the hands of a mentally ill felon.

I would like to see a Dem Congress member to propose a widescale gun control bill and call it the "Protect Donald Trump Act" and make it illegal in all states to sell a gun without a background check and make GOP congress members vote against it.

Good point, the gun was obtained illegally. As I've always said, criminals don't care about laws. Someone willing to kill isn't going to be deterred by gun laws

This of course is not how the world works. But don’t let me get in the way of seventh grade libertarianism.

[twocoach]

Florida doing it's own private investigation of this trump assassination attempt, instead of just leaving it to the intelligence communities (who are quite possibly involved like they were with kennedy)

If they did an investigation into how a convicted felon got their hands on an AK47 in Florida, they would find that a gunowner in Florida can resell their gun on the secondary market with ZERO requirement to run any sort of background check but I doubt they want to be honest about how that put a gun into the hands of a mentally ill felon.

I would like to see a Dem Congress member to propose a widescale gun control bill and call it the "Protect Donald Trump Act" and make it illegal in all states to sell a gun without a background check and make GOP congress members vote against it.

Good point, the gun was obtained illegally. As I've always said, criminals don't care about laws. Someone willing to kill isn't going to be deterred by gun laws

No, my point was that it was obtained legally as Florida allows secondary sales with no background check. Nice try, though, you felt excited to jump at that.

[Sparko]

Chum churns and excites the hungry troll

[zsn]

As I've always said, criminals don't care about laws. Someone willing to kill isn't going to be deterred by gun laws

Good. So let’s get rid of laws which criminalize stealing and murder. After all, they happen even when we have those laws!