CLEVELAND — Following what the FBI calls an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, 3News is getting perspective from a former member of the United States Secret Service.
Greg Truhan was a member of the agency for more than 20 years, serving on the security detail for multiple former U.S. presidents. Based on his viewing of the video, the agents in this case did "what they're trained to do" once the gunshots rang out.
"You're going to react the way that you're trained. That's what you learn in law enforcement, and ... in the secret service, these are the kind of things that we practice for," Truhan told WKYC's Russ Mitchell Saturday night. "They covered him, they were assessing him on the ground, you could hear through the radio that they heard from their colleagues that ... the shooter's down and they gave the clear sign, and that's when they picked him up to evacuate him."
Trump was injured during the incident, which took place during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. An innocent bystander was killed, while officials say the suspected shooter is dead, having been rumored to have fired the bullets from outside the protocol area.
"Whenever we do a site advance for a visit, we're going to have three levels of security," Truhan explained, first describing the perimeters of the former president and then the crowd around him. "The outer perimeter is where the checkpoints will be — where the metal detectors, magnetometers (are) — and then anything outside of that is that outer point. Doesn't mean we don't watch it; it's just that the outer perimeter will have the metal detectors, and anyone coming in any closer is going to have to go through the metal detectors.
According to Truhan, Trump had the "highest level" of Secret Service protection as both an ex-president and the presumptive Republican nominee, meaning "he gets all the assets, pretty much close to what the (current) president gets." Regardless of whom they're guarding, the job of agents is, essentially, to be ready to take a bullet for that person.
"We've practiced that so many times that it's just ingrained in your head," Truhan said of the expectations for the job. "The term they use is 'cover and evacuate,' so you saw the immediate response of the agents — he went down to the ground and they were covering him, then once they knew it was clear to move him, you saw that they were encircling him. They were covering him completely from 360 degrees."