THE MOST RECENT ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AT THE TRUMP INTERNATIONAL GOLF CLUB IN WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA (SEPTEMBER 15) HAS GIVEN SERIOUS CAUSE FOR CONCERN. THE INITIAL ATTEMPT TOOK PLACE IN BUTLER PENNSYLVANIA ON JULY 14. THERE ARE UNRESOLVED DILEMMAS WHICH HAVE PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES AND WORLD WIDE.
PROTECTING THE PRESIDENTS AND PRESIDENTIAL CADIDATES IS THE RESPONSIBILTY OF THE UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE (USSS) WORKING IN COOPERATION WITH MANY PARTNERS. THE MISSION OF THE SECRET SERVICE IS :
We have an integrated mission of PROTECTION and INVESTIGATIONS to ensure the safety and security of our protectees, key locations, and events of national significance. We also protect the integrity of our currency and investigate crimes against the U.S. financial system committed by criminals around the world and in cyberspace.
OBJECTIVELY THIS IS A RATHER STRANGE MIX OF RESPONSIBILITIES.
PERSONAL BACKGROUND
TOGETHER WITH MANY GARDA COLLEAGUES I HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING WITH THE US SECRET SERVICE ON HIGH PROFILE SECURITY OPERATIONS BOTH DOMESTICALLY AND IN THE UNITED STATES. I HAVE THE GREATEST RESPECT FOR THEIR PROFESSIONALISM. ONE WONDERS IF OTHER FACTORS DILUTED THEIR NORMAL CAUTIOUS APPROACH.
SECURING THE TARGET AREA
There are relatively simple guidelines for securing any target area which requires resources and adequate preplanning.
INTELLIGENCE GATHERING
The available intelligence information is analysed. This is the primary responsibility of the FBI acting together with many other security intelligence agencies both at the federal, state and local levels. This process involves a dynamic threat assessment based on the profile of the particular VIP and the general threat prevailing in that environment. The current presidential campaign amplifies these concerns exponentially. Explosive dialogue and unfounded abuse can certainly inflame a receptive audience.
SITE SURVEY
The actual site must be security surveyed. Essentially all the features must be mapped, photographed and analysed from a security integrity perspective. This information is used to formulate a security plan which details the specific counter measures to be taken to protect the VIP. This outlines the number of personnel required, the physical and electronic measures needed and contingency measures considered.
The multiplicity of agencies is the first obvious obstacle to good planning. Different objectives can conflict in terms of financial resources and personnel. The key question of "who does what" is a factor. The secret service is the lead agency in terms of protective measures and the FBI is the lead agency for investigations arising from criminal actions. It is also the lead intelligence agency.
In operational terms the secret service is responsible for securing the protectee at specific locations (red zone) they are also responsible for securing the transport used (motorcade) and the routes used. They have approximately 8,000 personnel (nation-wide) comprised of agents, administrative and support staff. The definition of what constitutes a red zone is critical to any examination of whether the secret service or the local law enforcement adopted a security profile consistent with the threat and risk factors associated with red zone protection in the current prevailing circumstances.
They secret service is reliant on the cooperation and active support of local law enforcement departments for cover outside the red zone and for motorcade route protection.
This process is complicated by the fact that there are literally thousands of law enforcement departments. Each of these organisations control their own patch, be that town or district and tend to act independently.
ACCORDING TO THE US BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS' 2018 CENSUS OF STATE AND LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES, FLPORIDA HAD 373 LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES EMPLOYING 47,177 SWORN POLICE OFFICERS, ABOUT 222 FOR EACH 100,000 RESIDENTS.
This photo below underlines the multiplicity of the different law enforcement involved in the Florida incident. Many other agencies will be involved in the follow up investigation.
Even more importantly each one of these agencies have a role in the services being offered to a protectee. Therefore the coordination of efforts is a major consideration.
SECURITY DETERMINATION
A determination must made to establish whether a VIP can be protected at a particular location or not. Was this determination made in respect of the last Sundays incident?
Fallibility
There is no such thing as an infallible security. It is a question determined on the balance of probability considering all the circumstances. High profile locations can be protected to extraordinary high level of security almost eliminating risk. VIP movement is a riskier process again mitigated by protected transport, route clearance and electronic counter measures.
KEY QUESTION
The key question is where does the Trump International Golf Club rate on that security continuum. The relatively easy answer is that the minute the presidential candidate Donald Trump rolled into the complex in his large motorcade, the entire complex becomes a red zone. Therefore a full protection package is required, commencing with perimeter or boundary security, close protection for the VIP, communication with all the agencies involved and an overall command control structure in place and functioning. All these measures could not be magically conjured in an instant. This profile would have to have been constructed from a full site security survey undertaken in advance together with a full operational plan and briefing for all the security elements involved. It was not the case on Sunday.
ANALYSIS
Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach This is a private 27-hole golf course. The Championship course measures 7,326 yards. It is an extensive property surrounded by public streets. The perimeter fencing appears relatively weak. Intruder concealment is facilitated by belts of trees both on the boundaries and internally in the course. There was no electronic counter measures installed on the boundary, either cameras or electronic anti-intruder measures, or so it would appear.
Overall the United States is a dangerous country in terms of gun crime and murder. The immediate heightened tension due to the Presidential election and the previous assassination attempt on candidate Donald Trump creates an enhanced security scenario.
Protective Measures while Mr. Trump played golf
The local Police Chief said that there was a protective security bubble around the President as he progressed in his round. The Secret Service also had deployed agents some distance in front of the Trump golf game. This was a screening and clearance operation which pre-empted an immediate attack. It was one of these agents who observed the gun "poking from the trees" and engaged with the individual (Ryan Wesley Routh) by firing several shots at him. The would-be assassin retreated through the trees to the fence line where had parked his transport. A citizen who happened to be there photographed the vehicle and its registration. This information was conveyed to Law Enforcement and he was intercepted some thirty miles from the contact point. There was a strong element of luck in this detection. It is probable that he would have been arrested at a later stage due to contact forensic material left at his hide. The troubling aspect of this bubble strategy is that a more experienced "sniper" would have remained concealed until the target appeared and then would have engaged. Also the tree cover provided many firing points and the outcome would have been very different if multiple shooters were involved.
It is probable that Routh intended to engage under fire because he had hung bags containing protective plates at his position.
The Secret Service has long worried about protecting Trump at his golf courses, the Washington Post reported, and had even tried to warn the former president about the opportunities it could provide to a would-be assailant.
In 2022, then-US Secret Service Director James Murray warned US law makers that the agency was scrambling to keep up with the pace and scale of Trump’s rallies.
He noted that the loss of the military support that a sitting president receives had put a greater strain on the agents assigned to protecting Trump after he left the White House.
The Secret Service had protected presidents at rallies before. But with Trump, “the nature is different, and we're seeing sometimes two, three, four, of these rallies every month”, Mr Murray told the House Appropriations Committee at the time. Trump's pastime of golf adds a different challenge.
"The hobby of golf is particularly problematic: You're outside, an outdoor venue, for hours at a time,” said Mr Eckloff.
It appears that the decision to play golf was taken on impulse without prior planning. It was not a scheduled event so no advance security arrangements were possible.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said on Monday that if Trump had been a sitting president, "we would have had this entire golf course surrounded". The sheriff is a 49 year veteran of policing and a retired US Marine and speaks with authority.
This was not the case on Sunday, the attacker got clean away from the location.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. praised his agents Monday for thwarting what authorities said was the second assassination attempt against Trump.
At an afternoon news conference with other law enforcement officials, he called it a “textbook” example of how his agents were able to identify and neutralize an armed threat to Trump while he was out golfing with a friend.
Rowe said the Secret Service has significantly beefed up its security measures for Trump since he was shot and wounded in the ear in at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Those increased assets, which Rowe said were in place Sunday, included counter snipers, counter surveillance agents deployed around counter assault teams partnered with local Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies and unmanned aerial system elements, or drones.
As a result, Rowe said, an agent "encountered an individual attempting to secrete himself in the wood line” at the public periphery of the golf course and shot at the suspect, prompting him to flee before being captured by local police. Other agents then swarmed Trump and took him to safety.
“The protective methodologies of the Secret Service were effective yesterday,” Rowe said. “The former president's protective apparatus allowed for the early identification of the threat and led to a safe evacuation.”
He also said that this was an "off the record' movement and had not been planned in advance, "he was not supposed to go there"
The acting director of the U.S. Secret Service said the agency needs to undergo a complete overhaul of how it protects presidents — a remarkable admission following the previous attack within two months.
“Coming out of Butler, I have ordered a paradigm shift,” Ronald Rowe said at a news conference Monday, referring to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. “The Secret Service's protective methodologies work and they are sound, and we saw that yesterday.”
But, he added, “we need to get out of a reactive model, and get to a readiness model.”
Authors Comment - The Reactive Model employs overwhelming lethal force to counter a lethal force attack. Self evidenly it means that the VIP is at the centre of this exchange with a consequent risk to life.
The Readiness model or the Preventative model is based on the idea of pre-empting attack by securing the relevant sites through initial search and then maintaining the location secure for the duration required. The VIP is safely removed from this process.
The Acting Director did not explain why the Secret Service agreed to escort Mr. Trump to an unsecured location, the proverbial RED ZONE thus potentially exposing him and the agents to an unknown risk of attack. His comments are in contrast to the remarks of Sheriff Bradshaw, that if Trump had been a sitting president, "we would have had this entire golf course surrounded.
The lead into the presidential election creates the same security dynamic for both candidates.
In all the circumstances the escort of Mr. Trump should have been declined. Unfortunately his long adopted habit of playing his golf there prevailed on the grounds of familarity and habit. This was the wrong option. Security protection cannot be turned on and off like a water tap to suit the mood of the moment
New York Times report
Former President Donald J. Trump gave his Secret Service detail short notice that he would be golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday, causing agents to forgo a scan of the perimeter, according to two people familiar with the events.
The decision not to survey the course at Trump International Golf Club, because of a lack of time, before Mr. Trump’s outing allowed a man with a gun to sit concealed in bushes for almost 12 hours.
Media Reports on the suspect
Ryan Wesley Routh was identified as the 58-year-old suspect.
According to sources of ABC News, he's a North Carolina native that had moved to Hawaii in 2017.Routh has an extensive presence on social media that included his disdain for the GOP presidential candidate, his feelings about the war in Ukraine and the 2020 election.
On June 10, 2020, Routh's apparent X profile directed a post on X at Trump in which he said had supported Trump in the 2016 presidential election but that Trump had become a "disappointment." It concluded, "I will be glad when you are gone."
Routh even weighed in on the first assassination attempt on Trump in July.
In a post on X, he called on Vice President Kamala Harris to visit the injured at the Pennsylvania Trump rally writing, "Trump will never do anything for them."
Routh had previously been arrested, according to a report by FOX News. Routh's arrests included offenses like drug possession, driving without a license, driving with an expired inspection and operating a vehicle without insurance.
In 2022, Routh reportedly was involved in a standoff with police as he barricaded himself inside an office of a roofing company where he worked.
The New York Times wrote that they had interviewed Routh in 2023. Routh apparently volunteered to help Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Secret Service Research
Historically the Secret Service analyses the profiles of assassins or would be assassins. This is intended to identify potential attackers.
Extract
An assassination attempt is the end result of a process of thinking and behaviour. Many
attackers and near-lethal approachers move through life on a path that leads them to
consider assassination of one or another prominent person of public status as an
acceptable way to improve their situations or resolve· their problems: These persons are
often relatively bright and/or well educated. they may appear to be socially isolated, but
they often look. dress, and act in ways that do not readily distinguish them from others
At some point - often after a life crisis - attackers and near-lethal approachers begin to
see the idea of assassination as acceptable and desirable. They may gather information
about previous assassins, take special interest in one or more potential public official
targets, and/or begin to view assassination as a way to achieve their objectives, such as
becoming famous or notorious, being removed from society, or getting killed. Some write
about their ideas and activities, in a journal or diary. Others tell friends, family, or
colleagues - but usually not the target - about their thoughts and intentions.
Attackers and near-lethal approachers often consider more than one target, ultimately
choosing a target for attack after concluding than an opportunity for exists and that
an attack on the chosen target is likely to fulfil their goals. But many of these persons
have mixed feelings about actually attacking. Some, who feel propelled to move along the
path to assassination, search for reasons why they should not attack, and are stopped
from mounting attacks by the belief that they will not be successful.
Some prospective assassins ·think about - and plan for - escaping after their attack.
Others approach their assassination attempts with the expectation they will be killed, or,
for the purpose of being killed.
This summation is an interesting philisopical exercise but in real practical terms it is unclear as to what impact it has in preventing attacks or identifying attackers in advance of the event.
Equally it is not clear if Routh was on any watch list as a person of interest.
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