OPINION:
We now know that there was significant awareness of the threat to the life of Donald Trump in the minutes before shots rang out on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania (“Republicans step up calls for Secret Service director to resign after briefings on Trump shooting,” web, July 17).
That the Secret Service failed to respond in a timely enough manner to prevent the shooter from firing his weapon is a complete system breakdown and failure.
I worked for an aerospace and defense company before I retired, and at one point I was part of a project for Viasat Corp. in Carlsbad, California. The company was developing a communications system because one of the takeaways from the Operation Desert Shield during the Gulf War was that while our armed forces could communicate well within their own branches, they were failing in communicating with each other. The result: “friendly fire” casualties. The joint-forces communication system developed in response to this terrible problem has been extremely successful and to my knowledge is used to this day.
That said, how difficult could it be for the Secret Service to have a supply of high-quality radios or walkie-talkies to pass out to supporting agencies to accelerate information exchange in case of a looming threat? I mean, how hard could that really be?
The recent assassination attempt was without a doubt an extreme failure by our Secret Service. That much is obvious. A “sloped roof”? Really? The photo of the snipers who took out the threat showed that the agents were themselves stationed on a sloped roof. This excuse by Director Kimberly Cheatle was hollow and pathetic at best and criminal at worst.
MARK DEAN
Idyllwild, California
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