When the news broke, everyone was quick to blame the Secret Service. They failed again. The problem was the dust was still flying and nobody knew what had happened yet.
Here’s what was known: no one in that ballroom was injured. Most didn’t even know anything had happened until agents flooded the room. Key personnel were evacuated. People hit the floor. An assassination was prevented.
That doesn’t mean lessons can’t be learned.
I’ll dust off memories that are nearly 30 years old — working protection details, limited experience outside the White House, most of it in New York — and tell you what I saw in the video released Thursday.
The role of perimeter security is to prevent an assassin from gaining access. They did that. It was close. It may have been at the last minute. But they did it.
The video tells a story nobody’s talking about. There’s an age-old argument about when to take down the metal detectors. It’s a budget argument, not a security argument. Nobody wants to pay a dozen people to stand around after an event winds down. Doesn’t matter the venue — local fairground, concert, presidential dinner. When it’s over, security walks. In the video, they’re breaking down the magnetometers. Their job is done. It’s stand-around-scratch-butt time.
Then Cole Allen comes through a door at a dead sprint in a long coat, 12-gauge pump shotgun in his hands.
In the video, a K-9 reacts just before Allen bursts through. The handler doesn’t follow up. My experience says that dog told his handler everything he needed to know. Why the handler didn’t act on it, I can’t tell you.
Of roughly a dozen officers on that checkpoint, one had his head in the game. He drew first and fired. He’s also the one who took Allen’s round in the vest. It saved his life. Prosecutors say the video rules out friendly fire. Taking a shotgun round in the vest while drawing and returning fire will affect your aim. Four shots, none connected. That’s not a failure — that’s physics.
If Allen had gotten past that checkpoint into the ballroom, we’d be having a different conversation.
Setting up security at an indoor event like this is its own nightmare. The Washington Hilton is a functioning hotel. You can’t lock it down like the White House. Security always takes second place to logistics, budget, and people who think they know better. Make do with what you’ve got. It never changes.
The bottom line: the security worked, mostly, with the tools at hand. Could it be better? Yes. And it will be.
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