On Saturday, former President Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was thrown into chaos when shots erupted from a gunman, resulting in the death of one and three being injured, including Trump himself.
Almost 24 hours after the shooting, many are asking how something like this could have happened, with the former president being protected by his Secret Service detail.
Donald Lane, a former Secret Service agent, recently dissected the shooting, telling WWL’s Dave Cohen that the events of Saturday were “very shocking.”
“It’s very alarming. Very shocking. I was shocked to hear some of these details that are coming out on it now,” Lane said, adding that there were definitely some “lapses” in security at the event.
Lane went on to explain that presidents are protected by two different rings of Secret Service members, with an outer and inner ring being prepped to take care of different threats.
He said that the different levels of protection are typically determined based on distance, but that in this situation, he thinks the outer ring of agents would have been responsible.
“You would have had somewhere a checkpoint where someone who wanted to gain access to that site should have been challenged, should have been stopped, especially if wearing a long arm around the shoulder,” Lane said. “And I think that’s the issue that the investigation will focus on. How did this person, who apparently was already deemed suspicious, gain access to the site through a checkpoint because there certainly would have been a checkpoint somewhere for him to gain access?”
With the information he has, Lane says there are two main questions he has for the Secret Service.
“That’s definitely where I think that two lapses occurred. How did he gain access to that area, whether there was a metal detector or not, without being challenged?” Lane said. And how did a “counter-sniper” not see it ahead of time?
Still, Lane said he doesn’t want to criticize the agents in this situation, though any potential failures will be brought to light.
“I don’t want to sit here and indict the whole, you know, the agents that were on scene. I think all of this will definitely come out in an investigation,” Lane said.
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For more thoughts from Lane and what he thinks needs to be done moving forward, check out the entire interview here.
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