Law enforcement experts raise questions about the Secret Service’s protective measures as lawmakers consider extra funding.
Although the U.S. Secret Service thwarted a gun-toting man’s apparent plan to shoot former President Donald Trump as he golfed on Sept. 15, the incident adds to prior security-lapse concerns, police officers with decades of experience have told The Epoch Times.
Highly publicized security weaknesses, which surfaced after the first assassination attempt against the 45th president on July 13, could embolden “copycats”—especially amid the heated 2024 presidential campaign, Billy Ray Hunter, a former SWAT officer in Alachua County, Florida, said.
“I pray that this is the last one [but] I’m really concerned because I don’t believe it’s over,” he said in a Sept. 17 interview, two days after the second incident. “Enemies have seen the inability to protect him.”
Both Hunter and James Tignanelli, president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan, told The Epoch Times that it’s apparent that agents failed to take some basic steps to secure the golf course and ensure Trump’s safety.
They also discussed concerns about circumstances surrounding the July 13 assassination attempt that killed a spectator and wounded three others, including Trump, at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Secret Service’s countersniper team returned fire and killed the suspected gunman.
Tignanelli’s biggest concern about both incidents was the lack of communication and coordination between federal agents and local officers—a problem that he sees “time and time again,” despite it being laid bare during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. That was a major impetus for creating the Department of Homeland Security, he noted, yet it remains an unresolved issue.
Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe on Sept. 16 defended his agency’s actions to protect Trump at the golf course, saying the measures deployed were effective. He noted that President Joe Biden directed increased resources for Trump’s protection following the Butler shooting, including countersnipers, countersurveillance agents, counterassault teams, and drones, which were deployed at the golf course, Rowe said.
The security footprint outside Trump’s golf course was “not much” different from when he was in office, Rowe said.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 17 said she has full confidence in the Secret Service.
Rowe said he considered it a success that Trump was unharmed after an agent spotted the suspect’s weapon at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and fired at him. The suspect fled. Authorities said suspect Ryan Wesley Routh didn’t have a line of sight on Trump, who was several hundred yards away.
Hunter, who worked on protective security assignments for nearly 20 years, agreed that the agents’ swift action was commendable. But Routh, 58, who was later arrested, may have been in the same spot along the brush-concealed fence line at the golf course for nearly 12 hours, according to a police affidavit. If agents had surveyed the golf course perimeter, they would have noticed Routh, Hunter said.
“That’s basic, to do a perimeter check … I’d say that’s ‘Protective Service 101,’” he said, adding that officers must prioritize the security of any area that could pose a security risk, such as a building—as was the case in Butler—or a wooded area, such as the one at the golf course.
Rowe said that Trump’s visit to the golf course was an “off-the-record movement,” meaning that it wasn’t on his official schedule, implying that the agents didn’t have much time to prepare for his outing.
But Tignanelli and Hunter contend that it wouldn’t have taken much time to survey the perimeter, and to ask local police to help with that.
Tignanelli said, in his experience, “the federal agencies don’t want to tell you what they’re doing.”
“It’s absurd on their part,” he said, adding that the situation hasn’t changed during his four decades in law enforcement.
Local police usually are the ones who “catch the bad guys,” Tignanelli said, pointing out that that’s what happened after the suspect fled the Florida golf course.
Hunter said it’s his understanding that the suspect may have gotten away if not for an observant person who spotted him fleeing from the golf course and took pictures of the vehicle, including the license plate, for police.
In the Butler shooting, local law enforcement first noticed the gunman an hour before Trump took the stage and shared this with command half an hour later. The Secret Service was not alerted to the issue until five minutes before Trump took the stage, while Secret Service countersnipers were notified 90 seconds before the shooting.
Federal agents and local police “weren’t communicating on the same radio frequency,” Tignanelli said. “We knew better than that 40 years ago.”
Radio systems can be set up “so that we could share information … we could be private or listen,” he said.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), chairman of a congressional task force that is investigating the Butler assassination attempt, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 16 that the incidents both seem to have been plagued by apparent deficiencies in security preparations prior to Trump’s arrival. He said that the bipartisan task force is now likely to broaden its current probe to include the Florida incident.
Seven Republican senators on Sept. 17 wrote to Rowe calling for Trump to be given the same level of Secret Service protection as sitting presidents get. They said the events at the golf course demonstrated that “Trump does not have the Secret Service protective detail commensurate with the existing threat environment.”
Biden on Sept. 16 said the Secret Service “needs more help,” before suggesting that Congress should respond to the agency’s needs. Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have said they’re considering pushing through additional funding for the agency.
Rowe said he was speaking with Congress about getting more funding for training and hiring more personnel.
In the wake of the incident, Trump has pinned some of the blame on Democrats’ rhetoric, citing ongoing remarks that he’s a “threat to democracy.”
The White House on Sept. 17 pushed back on the accusation.
“The president and the vice president have always forcefully, forcefully condemned violence in all forms, including political violence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “And we certainly have never encouraged any violence in any way.”
Both Biden and Harris condemned the apparent assassination attempt and political violence following the Florida incident.
Kelly said he wants to figure out what can be done to stop people from taking extreme actions, to ensure that “we are safe and secure.”
“Not just our presidential candidates, but also with America’s position to the world,” Kelly said. “I think we are way too vulnerable. … These are very dangerous times for America.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Secret Service for comment.