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The Secret Service at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner was impressive. In the video below the first shot is heard at about 0:04 seconds. Trump doesn't react, and he said later he thought that a waiter had dropped a tray.
Within 10 seconds, two members of his protective detail have positioned themselves around him in blocking positions, and he is quickly surrounded by others.
Within 20 seconds, five members of the Counter-Assault Team are positioned on the stage with weapons drawn.
Within 30 seconds, Trump has been evacuated from the stage, despite his falling as they are evacuating him.
The attacker never penetrated the main security perimeter at the magnetometers, even though he was heavily armed, firing his weapon, running at top speed, and having shot a Secret Service agent.
The agents showed good fire discipline. It would have been easy for them to fire an errant shot in the crowded ballroom or at the main entrance and wound a dinner-goer, but they did not.
Discussion (23)
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The Counter-Assault Team has an interesting role. Their job is to give the Protective Detail the time that they need to evacuate the president to a secure area. If the Protective Detail were under fire or had to engage an attacker, evacuation becomes much more difficult.
The CAT also disrupts more sophisticated attacks. They don't know if the attacker will penetrate into the ballroom, so they are prepared to engage him. They also have to face the possibility that the first attacker is only a diversion. Perhaps there are more attackers who will assault once the attention of the uniformed officers at the magnetometers or other entrances is diverted. Perhaps one or more attackers have managed to infiltrate the ballroom, unbeknownst to the Secret Service, and will open fire.
If the president is the only protectee in the venue, CAT only has to disrupt an assault for 30-60 seconds to allow the president to be evacuated. But here they had multiple protectees in the room, so 3 members of the CAT stood overwatch on the stage for about 3 minutes until all the protectees were removed from the room.
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I fear the time will come when there are multiple attackers.
I thought the SS response was superb; let's hope they never have to face multiple attackers.
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Now imagine what they could do if they were being paid...
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...or if they had enough staff...
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It is great that the response was so well executed. However, many of the reports I have seen this morning are highly critical (and if accurate, deservedly so) of the security measures (or lack thereof) leading up to the event.
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