I was hoping daily beast’s source link had more info, but no. I even looked for the full article and it is equally devoid of details. From apnews :
A local law enforcement officer climbed to the roof and found Crooks, who pointed the rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder, and the gunman quickly fired toward Trump, the officials said. That’s when U.S. Secret Service gunmen shot him, the officials said.
Honestly, I don’t blame the office for not getting pointlessly shot. I hope the officer immediately messaged the situation, but it was probably too late.
In fact, one of the news sites last night showed the shooting from an angle where you could see the anti-sniper to Trump’s right (left side of TV screen) as the shots came in.
I’d swear I could see the anti-sniper’s recoil hitting BEFORE Trump was shot. Don’t quote me on that, though. I’m not an expert.
Bad take. If he’d gotten shot, the snipers would have immediately killed the shooter before he could reposition and take more shots. It would have saved a guy’s life and kept a former president from being shot, so definitely not pointless. And he likely had on body armor so he had a lot better chance of surviving than any of the people in the crowd did.
Alright, I admit that from a tactical point of view, if the local cop got shot it would have alerted other security and maybe no one would have died … though at such short range, it would be likely that the cop died instead of the firefighter in the stands.
That said, I still don’t blame the cop – who I presume never had Secret Service training – for taking cover when someone aims a gun at them. That seems like an instinctive reaction that you’d need serious training to overcome. I expect it to take a few seconds at least to figure out how to approach the situation before you stick your head back up for easy targeting.
Better solutions might have been to either: a) have at least one person on that group of rooftops and every/any other roof-group in advance, or short of that b) when rally-goers said there was someone on the roof with a gun, radio that info FIRST and THEN look. It is possible that the latter happened, but no one passed the information forward and the cops haven’t owned up to the failure yet, but IF that happened, that sort of detail would tend to come out later rather than immediately.
This is not going far enough. If you’re pointlessly shot, you don’t have a chance to know whether you saved someone’s life or wasted yours and let the gunman get away, plus you’d rightly be fired for carelessness leading to an unnecessary death. From this tiny amount of detail, it seems like the cop did everything right. He’s got the guy contained and had an opportunity to call it in.
This is not the movies where cops win by disregarding risk and injuries, and somehow never dying: cops win with radios and bringing in more cops.
Hell, if the perpetrator shot in a hurry as described, this cop did save Trump’s life
The guy was also pointing his gun at a whole lot of people who weren’t trump. Do you extend your statement to them too because they support trump? At least many of the media weren’t there to support trump. I’m sure at least some people were there to see the spectacle rather than support him. Should their value be disregarded as well just for being around the guy? I get the attitude that trump has asked for this. I don’t think it’s right to say everyone else there asked to be shot at too.
The basic problem I see is that we keep treating police like it’s their job to protect people and when they don’t we say, nah it’s ok, that’s not your job.
It’s very much not their job. They’ve effectively lobbied to make sure there are laws that say police are never obligated to help or protect anyone but themselves.
I was hoping daily beast’s source link had more info, but no. I even looked for the full article and it is equally devoid of details. From apnews :
Honestly, I don’t blame the office for not getting pointlessly shot. I hope the officer immediately messaged the situation, but it was probably too late.
In fact, one of the news sites last night showed the shooting from an angle where you could see the anti-sniper to Trump’s right (left side of TV screen) as the shots came in.
I’d swear I could see the anti-sniper’s recoil hitting BEFORE Trump was shot. Don’t quote me on that, though. I’m not an expert.
Bad take. If he’d gotten shot, the snipers would have immediately killed the shooter before he could reposition and take more shots. It would have saved a guy’s life and kept a former president from being shot, so definitely not pointless. And he likely had on body armor so he had a lot better chance of surviving than any of the people in the crowd did.
Alright, I admit that from a tactical point of view, if the local cop got shot it would have alerted other security and maybe no one would have died … though at such short range, it would be likely that the cop died instead of the firefighter in the stands.
That said, I still don’t blame the cop – who I presume never had Secret Service training – for taking cover when someone aims a gun at them. That seems like an instinctive reaction that you’d need serious training to overcome. I expect it to take a few seconds at least to figure out how to approach the situation before you stick your head back up for easy targeting.
Better solutions might have been to either: a) have at least one person on that group of rooftops and every/any other roof-group in advance, or short of that b) when rally-goers said there was someone on the roof with a gun, radio that info FIRST and THEN look. It is possible that the latter happened, but no one passed the information forward and the cops haven’t owned up to the failure yet, but IF that happened, that sort of detail would tend to come out later rather than immediately.
This is not going far enough. If you’re pointlessly shot, you don’t have a chance to know whether you saved someone’s life or wasted yours and let the gunman get away, plus you’d rightly be fired for carelessness leading to an unnecessary death. From this tiny amount of detail, it seems like the cop did everything right. He’s got the guy contained and had an opportunity to call it in.
This is not the movies where cops win by disregarding risk and injuries, and somehow never dying: cops win with radios and bringing in more cops.
Hell, if the perpetrator shot in a hurry as described, this cop did save Trump’s life
Anyone who dies for Trump wasted their one life completely.
I really don’t blame the secret service for their slow response lol, but I guess they did take the job…
This is not the secret service though, just a random cop
The guy was also pointing his gun at a whole lot of people who weren’t trump. Do you extend your statement to them too because they support trump? At least many of the media weren’t there to support trump. I’m sure at least some people were there to see the spectacle rather than support him. Should their value be disregarded as well just for being around the guy? I get the attitude that trump has asked for this. I don’t think it’s right to say everyone else there asked to be shot at too.
The basic problem I see is that we keep treating police like it’s their job to protect people and when they don’t we say, nah it’s ok, that’s not your job.
It’s very much not their job. They’ve effectively lobbied to make sure there are laws that say police are never obligated to help or protect anyone but themselves.
so what happened to “protect and serve”
or is it just ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ ?
Protect and serve is just marketing unfortunately.