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"I love being a firefighter. The pay is good, the guys are a great team, I really like the support I get from the community. But man, do I hate fires. Every time there's one I feel like quitting, you know?"
Protecting the VIP is literally their job description. It's not like Trump's traveling around Iran or gatecrashing Black Bloc parties. An outdoor speech is something the SS must have a goddamn checklist for.
"Agent Black, you secure building A." Agent Black pulls out a checklist and goes down the list: call the owner, establish the list of people who have access to the building, which ones have to access it on the day of the speech, call them and get their pictures, identify doors which provide access to the windows facing the scene and the rooftop, identify how many ingress points have to be secured, call local police to get more warm bodies, give them their own checklists. On the day of the event do a roll-call, search the premises, seal the doors of the searched rooms and check the seals every X minutes, redo the roll call via radio every Y minutes, identify each person that approaches the building and cross-reference them against the list, turn away those who aren't on the list, escort those who are...
Someone obviously thought they could get away with some corner cutting. Or worse, "presenting a positive image". No, you have to be an asshole. If someone tells you they work there and they forgot their iPad in their locker and they are not on the list of people that have access to the building, they get to ride in the back of a cruiser until you find out why they are not on the list. If they are on the list, but not on the list of people that have to be there today, you tell them to stay the fuck away until the VIP leaves. If they get nervous, they get to ride in the back of a cruiser too, and you go check the lockers just in case their iPad is shaped more like an AR-15.
The Secret Service probably does do this. But the Secret Service was not "in charge" of the building. At least allegedly. And you know that Officer Black is not going to be as diligent. We all know how often a lot of cops sit in their comfy air-conditioned cop car on their laptop... not to be a dick, but it happens. So yes, corner cutting, 1000%. The conversation is about how much and how bad and how foreseeable those cut corners were. We're getting a clearer picture but we haven't seen the report yet, if they've even put it together yet.
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