Failed Protection: The Chilling Bodycam Footage That Exposes a Preventable Tragedy

We’ve heard the rumors for weeks now about several civilians and police agencies knowing of a suspicious person lurking around the AGR building prior to former President Trump being shot. We’ve listened to their frustrations after they said they told the Secret Service about it with no results. Now, for the first time, the government is releasing bodycam footage so we can judge for ourselves.

Check out the video below from Forbes. It is only 33 seconds long, but it is quite telling. It puts you there at the scene of the event. This is bodycam footage from a Butler Township police officer taken minutes after the attempted assassination. You can still hear the sirens in the background. Over and over again, you can hear the officer say, “I told them they need to post the guys, f***in over here.” A second officer asks the one who made that statement, “Who?” and he replies. “The Secret Service.” You can’t get much more clear than that. There is understandable frustration in the officer’s voice.

“I told them that on Tuesday,” the officer with the bodycam continues. The attempted assassination occurred the following Saturday, July 13.

Growing up, I remember my stepmother’s cousin coming to visit us on a couple of occasions. At the time (this would have been in the early 80s), he was head of one of the Secret Service Field Offices. He was part of the Presidential Protective Detail for a couple of Presidents. I recall stories around the dinner table about the two attempts on President Gerald Ford‘s life in 1975. For a while there, I wanted to be a Secret Service agent when I got older.

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Secret Service Agents closely check out the shady-looking guy who is trying to shake the President’s hand. Photo by the author.

Fast forward to 2003, and as someone who has worked with the Secret Service in the past when a military installation hosted then-President G.W. Bush, I can tell you that the Secret Service gets there several days in advance (that’s why they call them “the advance party” and plans out every possible contingency. For operational security reasons, I can’t go into details of the process, but I can say that when I was involved in it, it was thorough and comprehensive. The most remotely possible scenarios were considered. No stone was left unturned. This is perhaps why I was, and still remain, dumbfounded at the dismal failure of the Secret Service in Butler.

In the footage below, an officer is lifted to the roof of the AGR building, sees the shooter, and, after having a gun trained on him, drops back down on the ground and tells his partner what happened. To all of you conspiracy theorists out there, in this footage, we can’t see the shooter; we’ll just have to take the officer’s word for it. In moments, numerous fellow officers are within earshot as the first officer tells them what he saw:

He’s got a bookbag, he’s got a mad*** AR, lying down. Yeah, he’s got ****he’s laying down, proned out, bookbag next to him. But watch out because he can **** come right down on  you over there.”