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Ten days after former US President and Republican nominee, Donald Trump was shot at during an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle has resigned from her post.
This decision follows a tedious hearing on Monday (July 22) where she took full responsibility for what she described as the “most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.”
In her testimony, Cheatle said, “The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders. On July 13, we failed.”
The hearing was called to examine how the Secret Service and other security agencies allowed the major security breach and why the shooter went undetected during the rally.
A 20-year-old man fired multiple shots towards Trump, who suffered an injury to his ear, but said he was “fine”. The shooter was shot and killed by the Secret Service, the government agency tasked with protecting Trump.
One eyewitness claimed to have seen the shooter climbing up the roof of a building located around 150 metres from Trump, carrying a rifle. He told the BBC in an interview that he attempted to alert police and the Secret Service, but they did not respond. The shots rang out a few minutes later, he said.
The United States Secret Service was founded in 1865, and is one of the oldest federal investigative law enforcement agencies in the world. Its initial mandate was to combat the counterfeiting of US currency, but this changed after the assassination of then US President William McKinley in 1901.
Before McKinley, Presidents Abraham Lincoln and James A Garfield had been assassinated in 1865 and 1881 respectively. The US Government Archives note, “This third assassination of a President in a little more than a generation — it was only 36 years since Lincoln had been killed — shook the nation and aroused it to a greater awareness of the uniqueness of the Presidency and the grim hazards that surrounded an incumbent of that Office.”
In 1902, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for the safety of the US President.
The Secret Service works under the Department of Homeland Security and “employs approximately 3,200 special agents, 1,300 Uniformed Division officers, and more than 2,000 other technical, professional and administrative support personnel”, according to its website.
The Secret Service is mandated to protect the Vice President, the President-elect, their immediate families, former Presidents and their spouses (except when the spouse remarries) and children of former Presidents until age 16.
Former Presidents, such as Trump, are entitled to lifelong protection unless they refuse it.
The service also protects “major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election”. Presidential elections are to be held on November 5 this year. Eligible candidates are identified by the Secretary of Homeland Security after consultation with an advisory committee.
Candidates came under the agency’s ambit after the assassination of Robert Kennedy, who was running to become the Democratic Party’s official candidate for the 1968 presidential election. Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles early on June 5, 1968, less than five years after his brother, President John F Kennedy, was assassinated while riding through Dallas in a motorcade.
Many had expected Robert Kennedy to win the nomination amid a tight race. The mandate of the Secret Service was then expanded to “maintain the integrity of the democratic process and continuity of Government,” the agency’s website says.
The Secret Service has the power to carry firearms and to make arrests without warrants for any offence or felony under “reasonable grounds”. Its website says, “We rely on meticulous advance work and threat assessments to identify potential risks to protectees. Our protective work starts long before our physical presence.”
The US military supports the Secret Service in its work through Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams and communications resources. According to a Reuters report, local police aid the Secret Service in securing venues such as campaign rallies. Agents from other internal security agencies can also help.
Before large events like campaign rallies, agents scan the venue for bombs or other threats. “Law enforcement officials typically put up barriers as a perimeter, and require all attendees to go through a metal detector to enter the venue. Armed protective agents search all attendees’ bags and even wallets. Many rally goers are patted down by hand,” the report said.
An AP report cited two law enforcement officials as saying that members of the Secret Service’s counter-sniper team and counter-assault team were at the rally. The counter-sniper team uses long-range binoculars and has sniper rifles, while the counter-assault team works to eliminate threats so that other agents can shield and take away the person they are protecting.
Trump was swarmed by a large number of agents in black suits and dark glasses immediately after the shooting, who covered him entirely and took him away to a waiting vehicle.
