Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Where Was the Flying Squad?
A Congressional hearing has begun on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Some Congressional hearings generate a lot of heat and very little light. They become a platform for members of Congress to show their constituents what a great job they’re doing, raising campaign money, and national exposure to expand their brand outside their fortress districts.
The history of the phrase “Flying Squad”:
The squad was originally formed on an experimental basis by Detective Chief Inspector Frederick Wensley. In October 1919, Wensley summoned 12 detectives to Scotland Yard to form the squad. The group was initially named the Mobile Patrol Experiment and its original orders were to perform surveillance and gather intelligence on known robbers and pickpockets, using a horse-drawn carriage with covert holes cut into the canvas.
In 1920, it was officially reorganized under the authority of then Commissioner Nevil Macready. Headed by Detective Inspector Walter Hambrook, the squad was composed of 12 detective officers, including Irish-born Jeremiah Lynch (1888–1953), who had earned a fearsome reputation for tracking wartime German spies and for building up the case against confidence trickster Horatio Bottomley. The Mobile Patrol Experiment was given authorization to carry out duties anywhere in the Metropolitan Police District, meaning that its officers did not have to observe Divisions, giving rise to the name of the Flying Squad because the unit operated across London without adhering to divisional policing boundaries. – from Wikipedia
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I was assigned to the Secret Service Counter-Sniper Team on an overnight presidential visit. My partner was a Secret Service agent, and we patrolled the area of the hotel hosting the president in a marked police car. We had 4 or 5 cars on that assignment. Our job was to investigate any suspicious activity reported by the sniper team or anything that we saw on the streets around the hotel area.
The agent’s radio had access to the sniper team and other agents in the hotel. My radio had access to police transmissions from the hotel and district officers in the downtown area and 9-1-1 dispatchers. My expertise was not as a sniper. My expertise entailed knowing the streets and how to find any location that we were directed to by the Secret Service or reports of suspicious activity by police officers in the area of the hotel. We did not call ourselves the “Flying Squad.”
From Fox News:
Paul Mauro, an attorney and retired NYPD inspector who has been involved in several multi-agency security coordination efforts during his career, said a “flying squad” should have nabbed Crooks well before he pulled the trigger.
A “flying squad,” which can have different names, is an untethered, mobile response team that acts as roving surveillance and chases down anything suspicious.
Crooks was first identified as a “suspicious person of interest” around 5:10 p.m., the FBI told Congress, according to a lawmaker who was at Wednesday’s FBI briefing and spoke to Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity.
At 5:30 p.m., a witness spotted Crooks with a rangefinder. Other rally attendees reported Crooks’ suspicious movements to police.
But stationed law enforcement officers can’t leave their posts, in case the suspicious person or item is meant as a diversion, Mauro explained. That’s why there’s a separate team.
It appears that local officers assigned to traffic duty had to respond to the location of the sniper.
Watching the hearings right now, it has already devolved into a gun rights issue from the usual suspects. An after-action report should concern the specific actions, or the lack of actions, on that day by the Secret Service and local law enforcement officers. It should assess the communication, fixed posts, roving patrols, and whether there was a briefing with the Secret Service and local law enforcement days before the event. The briefing must include the Rules of Engagement for police officers in a combined Secret Service protection event.
Published in Policing
If only we could get rid of the guns! Mexico, whose highly restrictive gun control regime our leftys can only dream about, cannot protect it’s politicians.
Cheatle has already explained to the Congressional commission on the attempted assassination that she will need some time to examine the issues related to the situation of July 13th 2024 and then at the 60 day mark she will submit a written report.
So far today in her answers to Congress, she hasn’t been able to bring herself to state that mistakes were made.
Even usually ditzy AOC asked intelligent queries. One such question involved asking Cheatle about why the building from which Crooks made his deadly attack had been left outside the perimeter of control. AOC even pointed out that the building was only 150 yards away from where Trump would be standing, while the AR15, high powered rifle used in the assault, was capable of bringing down a target from 400 to 600 yards away.
I am already thinking that Cheatle’s finalized written account of what happened on July 13th will involve it somehow being Donald Trump’s fault. (Since the defensive notion that the SS has already floated, that the local police were commanded to take over significant aspects of SS duties, has been rejected by many people in the public, and by those police officers themselves.)
Doug, your portrayal of a flying squad indicates such a squad would be a vast improvement over the haphazard game plan that was in operation two Saturdays ago. Hopefully this squad will soon be made a permanent part of future SS assignments.
I’d say about 100% of the ones I’ve seen fall into that category. Practically nothing useful is ever learned. They are just a platform for Representatives and Senators to show what tough bulldogs they are by badgering the people testifying. And it works! Constituents love seeing Senator so-and-so really tear into someone their constituents dislike. If any new facts are revealed it is darn near an accident. Even politicians I usually like turn into jackasses when put into this role.
On the Five I just saw where the SS director said they normally keep radio records, but not for the day Trump was shot.
Really?
The real investigation will begin in January.
Pretty much the clincher on the “inside job” theory.
Isn’t it funny that the abbreviation we have started to use for the United States Secret Service, “SS”, has a precedent in another paramilitary organization?
I’ve had that thought
The presence of video cameras is the ignition switch.
Totally agree. I suspect that in the days before video and audio recordings, Congressional hearings actually were used for getting useful answers. Now it’s just a display of bravado. They are generally as pointless as the State of the Union address.
The hearings shouldn’t be held in front of cameras for the public. They should be recorded, then there would be little grandstanding for the ‘unwashed masses’ back home. Then, real information might be gathered. I was surprised by AOC’s intelligent question, also. Nancy Mace telling Cheadle she was spouting bull**** was entertaining, but grandstanding. Another thing — these hearings have no teeth. If a witness knew they would be immediately frog-marched to the DC jail for refusing to answer questions, or not directly answering them, might have a dilatory effect. Also — where are the agents who were on the ground 7/13? Why aren’t they testifying?
I wonder who wrote it for her?