Here at TPM HQ we’re listening to the Director of the Secret Service testify on Capitol Hill. I’ll start by saying that my understanding of this Secret Service/jumper controversy has changed pretty dramatically (as I suspect it has for many) after we found out yesterday that the jumper not only made it into the White House but actually ran around pretty far inside it. (Here’s a map that illustrates just how far he got.) Indeed, he got pretty close to the actual living quarters of the First Family. That’s amazing. And I say this as someone who’s been in those rooms that he ran around and has seen just how many Secret Service agents and members of the military (though they’re not there in a protective capacity) are packed into the White House.
Clearly, the Secret Service needs to tighten up its procedures. Not just because of this incident but this earlier one which we’re just finding out more about now in which the Secret Service reacted fairly casually to someone shooting into the White House and didn’t realize until days later that the shooter had actually managed to hit the residence itself.
But let’s draw back for a second. A few days ago I noted – somewhat in the atmosphere of various recent police shootings – that in recent years the Secret Service has had to handle quite a few fence jumpers. They’re almost always tackled soon after hitting the White House lawn and that’s the end of it. They’re often people suffering from a range of clinically diagnosable delusional behavior. Obviously, the Secret Service has all sorts of reasons to assume the worst. And yet, everyone of these guys (I don’t think there have been any women) has been taken down without any shots being fired, let alone anyone getting killed.
That’s a good thing.
This recent incident does force us to consider the possibility that this isn’t just extremely professional security work but perhaps an element of laxity. But, on balance, I think it’s just extremely professional security work – in contrast to this panicked and trigger-happy doofus in South Carolina. And that’s a really good thing. It’s also instructive, though not directly analogous, about whether we might try to institute slower resorts to force in everyday policing.
But this morning Rep. Chaffetz (R-UT) said that the Secret Service should be responding with “overwhelming [i.e., lethal] force” from the git-go against all intruders. Chaffetz had an exchange with Secret Service Director Julia Pierson in which Pierson explained that Secret Service officers have to make a judgment that “they are in imminent danger or others are in imminent danger before they can leverage lethal force.”
Chaffetz insisted that once someone has come through the security perimeter and is running towards the White House “we are going to take you down. I want overwhelming force. You disagree with me?”
In other words, once it’s clear you’re making a run at the White House, the rule is shoot to kill, “overwhelming force.”
I hope we can all say, No. That’s not what we want.
Frankly, Secret Service doctrines are so intense, I’m half surprised that’s not doctrine. But I’m glad it’s not.
The White House lawn is pretty big. And the place is crawling with Secret Service. It should be possible to apprehend someone on the lawn. It should definitely be possible to incapacitate and stop them at the building perimeter or just inside it. If the intruder is armed, obviously the entire calculus changes. But until you know that or can reasonably assume they shouldn’t be just shooting to kill every time someone hops the fence.
This is similar to the immediate calls after the latest jumper incident to expand the perimeter blocks further out from the White House. Now, at least in a hotheaded moment, a member of Congress thinks we should shoot to kill once some jumps the fence and heads toward the White House.
I’ve seen nothing to suggest that there is any need – consistent with our values as a civilian society – to expand the White House security perimeter or change the rules engagement. Tighten procedures. Turn the alarms back on. Maybe have more people on the roof monitoring the perimeter. But don’t just start shooting people until people – especially the First Family – are clearly in danger.
