The Trump shooting has made a mockery of the Secret Service
When trying to put in context how close Donald Trump came to being killed on July 13th, Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent, now an academic at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, uses an analogy that the former president could appreciate. “It’s a chip shot,” he says. For the benefit of non-golfers: one that is easy for somebody who practises. “It’s not hard to hit a target from 150 yards with a rifle,” he says. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from a suburb of Pittsburgh (see box on next page), was a member of a rifle club, though he was apparently rejected from his high-school shooting team. Had he been a slightly better shot, America’s election would now look very different.
But how on earth was he able to get onto a roof with a clear view of Mr Trump, and enough time to aim and fire? That question now seems likely to launch an enormous review of presidential security.
The roots of the Secret Service go back to 1865, when its job was to take on counterfeiting. It turned to protecting presidents only in 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. Since then, three presidents have been shot: Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Franklin Roosevelt was also almost killed in 1933, and a shooter missed Gerald Ford by inches in 1975. In recent decades, however, the force has grown to 8,000 agents, and no attempt has come so close in 43 years.
As the aftermath of the shooting in Butler, a town north of Pittsburgh, is revealing, that may not be enough. “In a perfect world at that site in Pennsylvania, there would have been 500 agents and 30 counter-sniper teams,” says Bill Gage, another former Secret Service agent, who now works for a private security firm. But in reality, he says, “the Secret Service is stretched so thin.” These days it is not only presidents who have details. Even Joe Biden’s grandchildren have them. To secure large rallies of the sort that Mr Trump loves, the service relies on the support of local police agencies. In this case, police officers from Butler County and from two neighbouring counties were assisting. But poor communications and co-ordination seem to have limited their effectiveness.
Crooks was in fact noticed and reported as a suspicious presence by police officers from Butler County nearly 30 minutes before he fired his gun. Between then and the shooting, numerous people in the crowd also spotted him climbing onto the roof with his rifle and reported it. Minutes before, a Butler County police officer was being hoisted onto the roof where Crooks was perched and he was confronted by the young man’s rifle muzzle. “Rightfully and smartly, the officer let go,” the county sheriff, Michael Slupe, told CBS. Yet snipers still did not shoot until after Crooks fired. One reason may be that, because of the panoply of agencies involved, all in different uniforms, they did not realise that the man in their sights was not a colleague.
Why wasn’t somebody on the roof in the first place? In an interview with abc News on July 16th Kimberley Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, seemed to suggest that health-and-safety regulations were the reason. “There’s a safety factor that would be considered…we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building from inside,” she said.
That admission seems likely to haunt her. Ms Cheatle is expected to testify in front of a House committee on July 22nd. For now she has the “100%” confidence of Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, and she says she is staying in post. Republicans are exerting pressure on her to resign. The idea that safety rules might have prevented an agent being placed on a roof will not help her.
Other criticisms she has faced seem more cynical. “One thing I’ve seen is massive dei hires,” said Cory Mills, a Republican congressman from Florida, on Fox News. dei means “diversity, equity and inclusion”, and the accusation seems to be that hiring women has weakened the Secret Service. Three female agents were in the crowd who surrounded Mr Trump immediately after the shooting, and one seemed to briefly struggle with her holster. But former members of the service do not see fault in that part. “My initial response was that the agents in and around the president there did a pretty good job,” says Robert McDonald, who now teaches at the University of New Haven.
Whatever Ms Cheatle’s fate, the size of the Secret Service seems sure to grow. Its budget is already $3bn, an amount equivalent to half the entire budget of the New York City Police Department. But America is a country awash with high-powered rifles and people who know how to use them. In many places, carrying them around in public is legal. A shooter only has to get through once. The most important Americans will get more protection. Everyone else takes their chances. ■
Correction (July 27th): In this article, we originally reported that the agency was founded by Abraham Lincoln on the day of his assassination in 1865. That is asserted on various official government websites, but in fact there is no documentary evidence to support it, and so it is best considered a foundational myth. We are happy to correct the record, and hope others do too.
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