United States of America

[Nightwatch]

Höflichst umschrieben. Das ist schier unfassbar - und gerade eben deshalb glaube ich hier einfach nur an völliges Versagen und an sonst nichts anderes, gerade eben weil es derart unfassbar inkompetent ist.

Womöglich kein neues Phänomen:

Going to share about my experience managing venues near a presidential appearance:

When Obama was President he visited the Austin Convention Center for a speech DIRECTLY across the street from one of my venues. (Narrow one way, one way on 5th.)
Got out for a quick presser less than 100 ft from my venue with a rooftop bar. SS DIDN’T sweep our building (nor our other venue a block & half down with a higher rooftop with a direct line of sight to that entrance), they also didn’t post up on any 1/2 dozen buildings facing it.
Local police guarded perimeter & put a few snipers on a building catty corner to ours facing the CC.

My boss & I thought it was crazy. We & the owners/managers of businesses in close proximity thought for sure we’d be approached & cleared.

Then it happened again about a year & a half later & then again after his presidency. I was approached by non federal security ONE time to have a security walk through & we refused because they were rude & forceful & we didn’t know if they were legit.

They said they would bring SS & state troopers so we said when badges showed up we would oblige. SS never showed, but Troopers did & we accommodated because there was no reason not to. We were happy to accommodate their reasonable request to access our venue.

Austin is a big city (#10 or #11 depending on the data used) so you would think they would do the same as they would in other major cities, but they didn’t. Local police filled in gaps out of courtesy & concern for POTUS, citizens, etc (& reputation, I would bet!)

I know a high ranking officer who volunteers to help manage big stuff because he’s that guy & also damn good at it. So I usually had him & other officers I know well around throughout. They were shocked the Secret Service was leaving them so blind with such high stakes.

But they did what they had to & knew to for the best probable outcome, also knowing that if anything went wrong, they’d likely be blamed. Which is fairly insane, tbh.

So I can see them not doing even that much in areas they don’t feel are an issue. I was appalled at how they were willing to shut down all the roadways for motorcades & disrupt the city in that regard, but did little to actually secure buildings around a fucking President.

https://x.com/JHolmsted/status/1812372442515415404

Die Positionierung der Konterscharfschützen scheint auch eher unglücklich gewesen zu sein:
https://x.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1812278269581967839