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Notes -
The new USSS director seems to have yo-yo'd a bit between taking the blame directly and shifting it to local PD, and at least in public has stressed that the USSS is taking ownership. Of course at the end of the day, "we trusted local police" is not a sufficient answer for the Secret Service, it's their responsibility, and ultimately their plan too and on some level they obviously realize that. I'd also say that it's likely a little bit easier for local police comms to leak than Secret Service stuff just due to classification type stuff and more people in the loop. It will probably make it into the final report, due in December (at least the House one will be). It's fair to suspect some PR angle. Such as, he's saying things like they'll fire someone if they find a "policy violation", but that's totally missing the point!! We get that you're short on manpower but at least one head needs to roll, there's no way the blame is that distributed. However, based on the info we have, even with its bias, it current seems that the most direct, practical kind of blame is indeed on the police, even if that responsibility ultimately lands upwards in the chain. Final judgement remains pending in most meaningful ways.
Personally I don't think the USSS have truly respected how different the MO and incentives of a county police department are from their own. And of course, Secret Service can't run purely on trust either. They need to be more intimately involved with local PD if they are going to rely that heavily on their manpower. Really, they need to take a leaf out of the book of orgs like the NTSB and NASA about how to handle both investigations as well as tighten up their way of doing things to avoid common mistakes. There's a reason both pilots and the actual military are so anal about saying things a certain way and using phrases and comms efficiently. But there's always the human question -- why fix it if it aint broke? They hadn't had such an immediate threat for a while, maybe even decades depending on the severity of the cutoff, so someone being a squeaky wheel about how the make communication better might not be listened to.
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