Security could have neutralized shooter before attack: former FBI
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assassination attempt on former US
president Donald Trump joining me now is
Ken Gray a former FBI agent and Senior
lecturer at the University of New Haven
and thank you very much Ken for joining
us hi Roger glad to be with you uh your
reaction and a breakdown a bit of what
you've seen on how Secret Service FBI
everybody handled it so far Secret
Service is responsible for the
protection of the president and they
managed to get their bodies on him and
protect him to the vehicle and then got
him out of the venue so from that aspect
they they did a good job a competent job
of getting them out of the area however
uh nonetheless the counter sniper team
uh may have had eyes on the shooter and
did not react to that so that's
something that will have to be looked at
as this investigation goes on FBI is
lead Federal Agency for investigations
of these types of matters they are
working with the uh the Pennsylania
State Police to do their investigation
the shooter has been identified as
Thomas Matthews Crooks a 20-year-old
that lives in bethl Park Pennsylvania uh
the FBI and law enforcement other law
enforcement agencies are out at his
residence today doing a search of that
residence they're going to be focusing
in on looking for evidence uh that he
was planning to do this shooting uh
they'll especially be looking at social
media at his computer and try to figure
out if he made any type of posting of a
threat uh before this occurred let's go
back to the original events uh and the
Secret Service sniper on the roof and
there seem to be some hesitation what's
going through their mind as they think
they're spotting the shooter what are
they what are they processing so when
they are looking at this person that is
crawling across the top of the building
they have to first identify him and
identify him as a threat and not
potentially other law enforcement you
don't don't want to have a Blue on Blue
type situation
but once they have identified him they
may have been trying to direct ground uh
agents or ground officers to the area
instead of shooting him uh straight out
but nonetheless that's the counter
sniper's job is to to identify a threat
and to neutralize the threat and does it
feel like that was handled fairly
quickly so uh after the shooting
occurred the counter sniper took out the
shooter however uh it's possible that he
could have been taken out before he shot
uh that is something that an
investigation will have to determine
whether or not the counter sniper was
acting within the The Rules of
Engagement for uh uh the counter snipers
now what will happen with this
investigation what will they what will
they be looking at how will they break
it down will we see more secret service
around Trump and maybe bulletproof
Shields around him when he's
speaking this was an open air venue and
open air venues are harder to protect
because of the possibility of a shooter
being outside the protected area I I
think that you'll probably see less open
AA type venues for until the election
here secret service will be doing a
review of uh of this particular event
looking at what went right and what went
wrong and make corrections to that uh
we've got the RNC uh the Republican
National uh conference starting on
Monday tomorrow and so the you will see
an increased security presence there but
that is a not an open air event that's
inside a conference center and
consequently Security will be easier to
provide at this event and I guess one of
the questions I think going back to this
is how did they manage to get up under
that roof which had a a fairly clear
shot uh of President Trump yeah that
that's a good question uh and I
investigation will have to determine
that but one would think that in the uh
doing the uh site survey before this
event uh that would have been identified
as a potential problem area and people
should have been posted on there in my
opinion so it's a question of Manpower I
think that uh this uh only 450 fet away
uh 150 yards uh uh that was a prime
location for a shooter to be up on the
shooter was not on there initially he uh
crawled across the roof and got into
position okay okay Ken thank you very
much for your expertise we appreciate it
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