Former Secret Service Agent Explains How to Protect a President | Tradecraft | WIRED

the United States Secret Service the protocols are born out of blood it may seem dramatic but it's actually a necessary process to understand past incidents failures and successes to ensure that threats are fully mitigated for future protectees my name is Jonathan wacko I spent 14 years in the u.s. Secret Service as a special agent they joined the United States Secret Service just prior to 9/11 I was assigned to the New York field office as a criminal investigator and 2008 went to Washington DC where I was assigned to the Secretary of Homeland Security's detail then just after the election of President Obama I went to the president's detail which allowed me the opportunity to plan and coordinate trips both domestically and abroad for the president and first lady so the approach of the Secret Service takes is a very proactive advanced process we think about three main areas we think about what are we gonna do in a tactical or crisis situation what are we gonna do in a medical situation and what are we gonna do if we have to relocate this protectee and those are the big three there are subcategories to all of them but every agent and officer is constantly thinking about what am I going to do what is my personal protection plan and what is my plan for my protectee we've never complacent because the moment that we become complacent complacency kills and something happens the president goes to any location the methodology is to set up concentric rings of protection around where he's going to be that starts with the inside of a building the dais if he's giving a speech how do we build out a security program from there first we look at where the president is going to stand we try to mitigate any line-of-sight issues that may occur we want to make sure that that environment is secure I want to be able to fortify my perimeter I want access control I want to fully understand how I mitigate everybody that's coming into that environment that's the metal detectors that's the explosive detection that is the utilization of different technology to ensure that we're always putting the president in the most safe location regardless of where it is when a Secret Service advance agent goes into a location that the president or any of our other protectors are going to go into they're looking at that space much differently than the average citizen everything from the HVAC the air conditioning units you know how does that affect my environment can someone introduce an error all spray from a clean air intake from the outside and affect myself or the protectee I'm looking at the lighting who controls it can that room get dark real fast and then attack it launched how many entrances are there is there a set of stairs that can lead up from a basement is there an access way into the kitchen area I want to understand all of the access points into that location once that room fills up with people I want to understand what are the crowd dynamics gonna be in that space in the event that something happens it could be something in administrative like a medical emergency how is that crowd gonna react what are they going to do and what that crowd is going to do is going to be the opposite to what I'm going to do with my protectee because I want to be able to quickly and effectively remove myself from that situation once that environment is established how do we maintain it the entire duration that the president's there I'm looking at the perimeter of that location that perimeter can be our local law enforcement presence that's now allowing us to keep the general public away from this protective site that moves out even further we start looking at long-range issues that I need to address I need aerial surveillance I need the ability to understand what that airspace looks like above me I need to understand if I'm near a terrain features such as water how do I mitigate the vulnerability that's coming from that waterway so do I need police boats out there that starts to become that outer ring so protective methodology and these concentric rings you want to address those types of threats as far out as possible that's really the tradecraft and it comes down to experience it comes down to constant training and communication and awareness of your environment oftentimes people look at the President and they have blinders on they don't even realize that their own action of what they're doing around the present here we see a young woman who starts hugging the president and doesn't let go she's not doing that out of malice she's just starstruck that the president is there the Secret Service has to be mindful that this isn't a threat that's going to take the president's life but it is nettlesome we have to address this because it can cause a safety issue in the operating environment for the president a lot of times the actions that see service agents take are not even realized by the people in the crowd here we see a special agent in charge and other agents carefully removing the arm of the individual away from the president the president doesn't realize what's happening nor does the individual but this is tradecraft this is what they trained for and it happens right here or seeing here is then candidate Trump speaking someone aggressively comes towards the podium Secret Service agent is immediately up onto the stage the shift comes up with them they provide 360 degrees of cover once the threat is taken away the president can go back to you know giving his his speech so as dynamically as a threat Rises they can also be mitigated just as fast social media is just instant information and it can be factual or disinformation that social media is a challenge for any protective construct whether it's the Secret Service any government entity or in private security because information is dispersed and can go viral very quickly there are times that the Secret Service in conjunction with the military and the White House take the president on a classified trip previously that action was much easier we can go under the cover of darkness we could deploy a low profile protective methodology where we're not going around with lights and sirens and a big police motorcade problem with social media today is everything becomes public so the example of the president going over to Iraq the disclosure of that became public when Air Force One was seen over the United Kingdom and someone took a picture of it posted it online and instantaneously every news service around the world realized the president was in the air and in trying to track that aircraft becomes easier and now we have the president's location on a classified mission and just think about how dangerous that is for the United States Secret Service the military and the President himself social media is a challenge not for just understanding where our protectees are it's also a new pathway for threats and social media has become this superhighway for making threats against protectees but every threat that comes into the Secret Service has to be investigated the pathway of social media doesn't change that because now a message is come in every that are either direct or veiled threats that have to be investigated the same way the means opportunity intent for someone to need to cause harm to our protectee the threat environment is very dynamic and unpredictable Secret Service is mindful of that so we have to constantly look back and say how do we improve how do we get better yes we came out of that environment nothing happened but is there something that we could have done better if you look back at the Kennedy assassination no one had thought that someone would try to shoot the president from a long range as they were traveling in a motorcade think about how difficult that shot is to make it's a moving target it's small from a distance so in the Secret Service at that time was looking at it they're always mindful that there is a probability that an event like that could happen but the likelihood was pretty small for that high-impact situation well calculation was wrong so on this day in Dallas we saw some things that worked really well we saw that Secret Service agents that are located here and here are able to quickly react to anything that may affect the the President or the first lady what's different here this time as compared to today is the motorcade route itself how it's secured back then on either side of the motorcade as you'll see the crowd can get very close so at any moment someone could step into the crowd and block that motorcade today based upon what we know we ensure that all presidential motorcades have some sort of barrier and are posted by law enforcement to ensure that threats can't come and cross across in front of the motorcade additionally what we're seeing in this angle is is a great view of the president first lady you'll never see that today why because after this tragic day in American history The Secret Service learned a very vital lesson never to allow the president United States to ride in an open air vehicle the Secret Service would rather have the president in an armored vehicle away from the public where they're not engaging thus reducing the risk however that's just not feasible in today's environment so what we have to do is we have to stage engagement between the president and the public very carefully here we see a video of President Obama from the inauguration getting out of this limo this is a carefully coordinated event we have had a very specific security construct built around it to ensure even though they are in open air and in the public all threats within all concentric rings been mitigated our protective methodology hasn't changed we're providing 360 degrees of coverage we're seeing the crowds are completely separated by barricades so we will not have a surge onto the motorcade route there's also police postings here here here every 7 feet there was another member of the law enforcement or military community that was providing security for this event every agent in this image has a very specific role they're there to immediately respond to the President or the first lady and immediately bring them back to the limousine for protection in the event of a crisis situation as you'll see we have agents that are flanked on the left and right hand sides who are there to address the threats if anyone is to immediately come over the barricade the supervisors are in close proximity and they're there to cover and evacuate these protectees and get them to safety he received in September 1975 President Ford leaving a hotel in San Francisco just after leaving the hotel president fours walking towards his vehicle at the same moment an assailant across the street Sarah Jane more fired away the Secret Service taking the emergency action drill that they have trained for took the president it covered and evacuated him we're seeing the absolute right things here being done by the Secret Service agents the president is here they're covering them they're putting him down behind armor they're trying to get him into the limo but a fateful lesson was learned the limousine door was not opened ever since this day every time the president is near a limousine near armor that door is open because that's our safe haven another lesson the Secret Service learned was the day that President Reagan left the Washington Hilton and was shot in the moments that the assassination attempt had occurred all the agents that you're seeing here in here are starting to face a protectee the lesson learned from President Ford that we saw earlier this limo door is open one of the key elements of a Secret Service agent is putting yourself between the threat and the protectee here we saw our Secret Service agent make themself big they absorb the threat in this instance of firearm this action alone saved the president's life because it allowed for President Reagan to be put right into the limo we mitigated a potential loss of life by instituting a policy because of President Ford always to have the limo door open imagine the tragic scenario that we'd be in if this door was not open at that time or the Secret Service agent didn't react the way that they did as we have seen the protective model evolves over time the Secret Service is always trying to evolve and get better they're reassessing every action that they take on every single trip to ensure a more holistic and secure environment for the protectees one thing that hasn't changed is that our protectees always remain a target but how is the threat changed what are the different tactics that have used they've become more dynamic because our mandate is protection we have to put ourselves between the threat and the and that means that we have to stand up tall when there's gunfire we have to go address the threat head-on we have to become the stop the barrier between that threat whether it's a sharp edged weapon a gun doesn't matter we have to stand in between that threat and the protectee we understand that it's just not normal to want to put yourself in between a gun and a protectee but there's a greater calling here we have to think about what we're protecting and what that mission is

Channel: WIRED

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Keywords: jfk assasination, secret service, threat level, assassination attempt, ronald reagan assassination attempt, presidential security, assassination, secret service agent, presidential protection, threat analysis, john f. kennedy assassination, gerald ford assassination attempt, ford assassination attempt, secret service agent explains, secret service obama, secret service trump, secret service agent protection, secret service agent technique, secret service assasination, wired

Id: D8iMBvmBNgM

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 29 2019