(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Tim McCarthy, the former police chief of southwest suburban Orland Park, has a unique perspective on the attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump.
The Chicago native was a Secret Service agent who was shot during an assassination attempt on then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
McCarthy told CBS 2 that Trump was fortunate to be alive.
“If that round was another inch or two to the right, I suspect he’d have been seriously injured, if not killed,” McCarthy said. “He is extremely lucky. It’s a terrible, terrible situation, but he is extremely lucky, because the round appears to have hit his ear. It’s plain to see if it was one or two inches to the right, it would’ve been a headshot, and as we all know, those are typically catastrophic.”
In situations like the one that unfolded on Saturday evening, he said bodyguards are often at a disadvantage.
“Unfortunately, in almost every firefight, the bad guys often get off the first round because it isn’t humanly possible to react instantaneously, but you’re going to react shortly thereafter — and it appears they did,” McCarthy said. “They covered him, clearly, got him to the ground, got their bodies in between, as they should have.”
He added: “There is no security that’s foolproof.”
McCarthy also said the Secret Service now faces many questions about what happened, and how to prevent such a situation in the future.
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