Stopping the latest assassination attempt was skill with a large dose of luck

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As the “blame game” continues in the shadow of the Secret Service’s failure to protect former President Donald Trump, I’ve heard various theories and strategies of finding new answers to better protect their protectees with their limited resources. Since the death of George Floyd and the call to defund the police, every law enforcement agency, including the Secret Service, has struggled to fill its ranks. That the shooter in Florida allowed his rifle muzzle to protrude from the bushes was a rookie mistake on his part. A trained sniper would never make that mistake. That mistake, coupled with the agent’s perception of it, probably saved Trump’s life.

That an agent saw the rifle’s muzzle protruding from the bushes was both a nod to his or her powers of observation and a small miracle. This chance spotting of the muzzle, we might term as really good luck on the agent’s part, but we would not want to rely on it for future sweeps.

There is a much simpler, much more cost-efficient strategy that I have not heard mentioned: police K9s. While we might call the agent’s observation of the rifle barrel a small miracle, to a police canine, with or without the barrel in sight, locating the hidden assassin would be child’s play. Having worked with a police canine as a police officer, I can assure you that the dog would have found this person secreted in the bushes and would have alerted his handler. It would have taken mere seconds and there would have been no doubt that the dog had discovered the presence of someone attempting to remain hidden.

Police dogs, as a result of their training, love finding hidden persons and objects (guns, knives, basically anything used in a crime). Unfortunately, like just about all law enforcement duties, there are always dangers to the police canine and handler (think of St. Paul officer Tim Jones and his canine, who were killed in St. Paul while attempting to locate a hidden killer in 1994). But, the job of protecting their protectee from harm is made substantially simpler and safer. The dog can cover large tracts of land in a very short time and be very thorough. They can also very quickly catch and “hold” a suspect who is fleeing police as this suspect did.

I know that the Secret Service uses bomb detection dogs regularly. I don’t know how many “protection”-type dogs they train, but they know they can always rely on state, local and county agencies, most of which, in this day and age, have ample numbers of well-trained canines among their ranks.

There are simple tasks for police canines like finding hidden suspects in bushes, and complicated ones, like finding the shooter in first assassin attempt on Trump, in July, who was above ground. While the dog, with the aid of a competent handler, can find both, they are much better suited to finding suspects on the ground or inside buildings. The Secret Service would be wise to utilize them for sweeping areas, both outside and inside, prior to occupying them.

Richard Greelis, of Bloomington, is a retired police officer.