Some 24 years ago, we invited the then Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani to our home in New Delhi for a meal. His security team came over a week before to assess the threat level. We were asked who else would attend. We mentioned that there were just two more guests for the evening: Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley. Back then their threat perception was not judged to be that high, so the security team promptly got down to work accordingly to ‘sanitise’ our house.
The house was inspected by sniffer dogs and men with mysterious gadgets. Every single rooftop and balcony with a clear line of sight to our house was surveyed and at least one security personnel placed there. Our own roof had several of them. Vendors and parked cars in the vicinity were removed. The service lane in the rear was cleared of all movable objects. Even the drivers of the taxi stand opposite our house were asked to park their cabs elsewhere for a day.
The dinner went off without incident, but it did lead to much speculation in the neighbourhood about why there was such a security cordon in the area. As the DPM’s cavalcade came and went very unobtrusively, people concluded that a terrorist cell had surely been busted there. And the paanwala returned to his spot on the pavement near our house the next day and authoritatively told his clientele that a large cache of arms had been unearthed in the service lane!
Needless to add, standard VIP security protocols have changed—and increased exponentially—since then, especially when the now Prime Minister Modi attends an event in India or abroad. That is why glitches like having his cavalcade stuck on a flyover in Punjab for 20 minutes due to farmers blocking the highway became such a big deal. There is simply no room for mistakes when the threat perceptions of today’s political leaders have risen to dizzying heights.
In that context, a 20-year shooter “bear crawling” onto a rooftop and letting off several shots from a semi-automatic AR-15 type rifle at former President Donald Trump giving an election speech 130 yards away, is an utterly shocking and unacceptable security breach. That the Secret Service—tasked with protecting a former president—was responsible for this egregious security lapse is even more astounding, considering it is thought to be the best in the business.
Some of their errors would be particularly glaring to Indians, as we have gotten used to ever-increasing security protocols ever since the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Not since the 1980s has any unvetted person been allowed anywhere near a high-profile “protectee”—a familiar Indianism nowadays. Even the vast crowds at desi election meetings are vetted with metal detectors and all high vantage points are routinely occupied by security personnel well ahead of time.
Days before a VIP visits an area in India, local police and domestic intelligence services assess the presence of suspicious people; they also ascertain if any criminal or terror elements have been seen there. They also activate informants to suss out unusual activity. In this case, the shooter had actually bought the bullets from a local store there just a few hours before Trump was due to address an election rally and yet no informant or cop raised any red flags!
Even more chillingly, just a few minutes before the gunman fired, bystanders saw him on the roof of the factory and desperately tried to alert the police. It is being said that one cop did climb up and see the shooter, but inexplicably climbed down rather than engage. Ideally, the Secret Service should have been immediately informed and they should have jumped up and shielded their protectee till some security personnel went up to that rooftop and gave the all-clear.
Instead, the gunman had time to fire and injure Trump, who had providentially turned his head at that very moment, causing a bullet to clip his ear instead of entering his brain. The Secret Service reportedly did not do a sweep of that building as it was outside some notional security perimeter. So that building was left to the police force of the town of Butler, Pennsylvania to sanitise. Can—or should—a small-town police force be entrusted with such a task?
This was an astounding display of non-application of mind, for which many heads—including the head of that coveted service itself—should certainly roll. The Secret Service team charged with securing the immediate location for Trump’s visit were also outrageously non-alert. They failed to keep tabs on local law enforcement and hence did not realise one of the policemen had seen the gunman when told by some bystanders about his presence on a roof.
It begs the question whether that team would have taken those bystanders’ concerns seriously either, had they been alerted by the local police force about him in time, that is. Conspiracy theorists may indeed wonder whether the fact that the people were obviously Trump supporters had something to do with their testimonies being discounted by federal security personnel. Partisanship has seeped into many institutions of the government in the US, after all.
Investigators have reportedly said that Trump’s Secret Service contingent was beefed up as he had been deemed the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidential election. That meant more personnel including snipers besides drones and even robotic dogs. In that case, it would not be far-fetched to assume that the personnel chosen (original as well as extra) are not the brightest pennies in the piggy-bank given their obvious lack of foresight and attention to detail.
It is inconceivable that the Special Protection Group (SPG) which is India’s security force charged with protecting the Prime Minister—the current one with arguably one of the highest threat perceptions of any head of state in the world—would leave any place with a view of a podium unattended. The SPG, even when it has to depend on the state police forces for security preparations, sets very high standards; and after the Punjab that level has been raised further.
A little under 22 years after that dinner for the then DPM, an invitee at that earlier meal came again to our place–as PM. Security protocols were even more rigorous and more targeted than in 2000, with both overt and unobtrusive components. The SPG personnel were polite but intractable, and preternaturally alert. It is time the US Secret Service takes a few tips from our SPG or sends personnel to India for refresher courses on latest security protocols.
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
Comments
0 comment