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From what I could tell in the video posted here a day or two ago that merged a bunch of different videos that have become public from random people's phone cameras or whatever, the sloped roof that the counter sniper team was on looked like it turned out to be a problem for them. They were likely already alert to a possible threat in that direction and were already oriented that way. It looked like a metal roof, and when the first shot cracked, both of the guys in the shot visibly flinched and started slipping down the slope. They ended up off balance and struggled for a second to get back up into position, reacquire the target, aim, and take the shot. The delay from slipping may have enabled the final rounds from the would-be assassin to happen.
I don't have any grand pronouncements as to blaming anyone or anything, but I imagine that AAR and future training/procedures will make such folks at least a little more likely to include things like a grippy, non-slip mat in their kit in the future in case they need to establish a better base from which to fire. I'm binning this just under, "The real world happens like that sometimes, and people hopefully learn."
That's all well and good, but the head of the secret service's claim was that no one was posted on the shooter's roof because of safety issues due to the slope, even though people were posted on other sloped roofs (and roofs that appear to have a steeper slope than the shooter's roof)
Somewhat of a coincidence, but I thought it was funny enough to make me want to share it. I happen to be reading through a book on home inspection, because I just want to know more about maintaining the house, and it's talking about roof inspections. It gives some factors for/against getting up on the roof in different conditions. ...then we get to the section on metal roofs. It says, "Never get up on a metal roof to inspect it: it’s too slippery, even in dry weather." The emphasis was in the original.
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If I were forced to steelman, perhaps it could be done. I've been reading some of the articles about what their plan was and what went down (NYT just had a pretty detailed one that didn't seem atrocious). The biggest aspect would be the SS/local divide. Folks in this thread have already made jokes about the local folks probably being incompetent, screwing stuff up and not doing what they're supposed to do. The SS could have thought, "Yeah, we're not going to have some obese local hanging out on that roof all day, just hoping that that they don't hurt themselves," while still thinking that their own counter sniper team was obligated to take such a position, for lack of any better positioning options... plus a little overconfidence that their guys would totally be capable of handling it, even though the dumb locals couldn't (as I mentioned, I think this belief turned out to be wrong, considering that both their guys immediately started slipping down the roof).
I still totally agree that things were immensely screwed up, because that roof is the single most obvious place to attack from in the area.
EDIT: I also think that if their reasoning was something like this, they really can't vocalize, "The reason why we thought it was a safety issue is because we have no confidence in obese, incompetent locals." Too much social desirability bias.
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