The US Secret Service has been branded “disastrously inadequate” following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his rally.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed at the scene by security after shooting at the former US President in Pennsylvania.
Following the incident, many critics have called on the Secret Service to “answer questions” about the security “failures” which led to Crooks carrying out the attempted assassination.
Speaking to GBN America, retired United States Army officer Lt Colonel Daniel Davis claimed that Trump was “millimetres away” from losing his life.
Lt Colonel Daniel Davis hit out at ‘disastrously Inadequate’ Secret Service following Trump’s assassination attempt
Getty / GBNA
Davis said of the shooting: “Who knows what could have happened at the end of that – it would have been just incredible chaos. It just appears to be just blind luck that has kept him alive so far.”
Expressing his concern for the “inadequate operation” of security and the Secret Service agency at the event, Davis stated that they have “questions to answer” about what went wrong on Saturday which enabled Crooks to carry out his plot.
Davis fumed: “The performance of the entire law enforcement system, not just the Secret Service, but the local officials as well, was just disastrously inadequate.
The former US President suffered an injury to his ear as a result of the shooting at his rally
Getty
“They didn’t even take some of the normal procedures and precautions that would be ordinary from someone who didn’t even know what they were doing, much less from someone who’s supposed to be an absolute expert at it. There’s a lot of questions for the agency to answer.”
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When asked by host Patrick Christys what the “key questions” are that need to be put to the Secret Service, Davis responded: “First and foremost, what needs to be answered is how is it even possible that the building from which the shooter took his shots was not specifically manned and protected.
“Because when you look at that whole area there, especially from some of those drone shots, it’s wide open territory. There’s not even a lot of trees in the way, the land is flat.”
Discussing the building which Crooks took his shot in more detail, Davis added: “The only real threat to the president would have to be from some elevated position with a line of sight to the platform. And there was only a handful of buildings in the entire area that met that criteria.
“That was the closest one, it was barely 147 metres. I think that was the actual distance to the platform, which is really close, and for that to have not been protected and defended is just really hard to understand.”
Davis said Trump surviving the attack was ‘blind luck’
GBNA
Explaining to GBNA what his second point of concern is in regards to shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, Davis noted that there were “so many sightings” of the 20-year-old before he carried out his attack.
Davis told Patrick: “There were so many sightings of this guy when he was moving from building to building to get to the one from which he shot, and policemen were aware. There was many people on the ground who were shouting that there’s a gunman there.
“One in particular said he was physically pointing up at the sniper teams waving his arms, pointing to the roof. He claims that they saw him, and yet no one took any action either to take out the gunman or to remove President Trump from the platform.”
Davis concluded: “The first thing to do is to suspect that there’s a gunman. He should have immediately been taken off the platform. None of those things were done, and there’s a lot of questions as to why that is.”