Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / A Former LEO Sniper Talks About The Attempted Assassination of President Donald Trump

Transcript

A Former LEO Sniper Talks About The Attempted Assassination of President Donald Trump · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

0:08
All right, five past the hour, third hour Morning show with Preston Scott's
0:11
Show fifty one ninety seven. Over there in studio one A is Grant Allen
0:16
and producer of the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Jose can you see?
0:21
And that is jose C A n u s at iHeartRadio dot com. But
0:28
with me in studio is Ladies and Gentlemen. He's the co founder of the
0:34
talent training group Talenrange dot com and the co host of Talent Outdoors. And
0:39
more importantly than all of that, our friend Charlie Strickland. Hey, Hey,
0:44
how are you. I'm fantastic glad to be back in the studio.
0:47
Yes, it's so good to have you back. Seems like forever it's been
0:50
since May. I felt a little cold shoulder. Well, I just you
0:54
know, May, I thought I may be back one day anyway, Sorry
1:00
I missed you last month. But vacations or vacations, when they make you
1:03
take the day off, what do you do? What are your day off?
1:07
You take it? At least you told me before I got up at
1:08
five o'clock in the morning and drove over here. You're welcome. You're welcome,
1:14
obviously. One of the first people that I thought of after you know,
1:18
the events on Saturday unfolded and I'm like, we need to get some
1:22
insight on this, and I was really grateful that we were going to have
1:23
a segment with either you or JD. But you have served as a sniper,
1:30
you have trained snipers, and you have personal experiences in situations where presidents
1:36
are president. Yeah. No, I was a sniper on the Lyne County
1:40
SHARSLOF SWAT team for about eight years. During my tenure on the SWAT team
1:45
over about nineteen years, and uh, we've done a lot of long range
1:49
or rifle scope, rifle, long gun type training through the agency, with
1:56
other agencies and with civilians. So yeah, I've got a little little bit
2:00
of time behind one. I've done governor's inaugurations with former president at the podium
2:07
with his son Jeb Bush back in the first Bush inauguration here in Tyla Hassee,
2:13
So you know, when we do a lot of the big events,
2:15
I've done vice presidential escorts on a motorcycle here in town. You know,
2:21
sort of know how things work locally, or at least how they did.
2:24
They don't. Things don't change much, but so yeah, I been down
2:28
that road a couple of times. What do you think is important for people
2:31
to know about just the broad general nature of providing protection and sniper protection for
2:39
a president or former president or the first family. Well, it's not the
2:43
Secret Services responsibility to provide outer and a lot of the inner perimeter security.
2:49
They rely heavily, almost exclusively in these cases on local law enforcement to do
2:54
that. When when I worked, and I don't know what's going on now,
2:59
I'm not giving them a trade secrets, but when I worked, the
3:02
tail As Police Department's team took the prayer breakfast down at Famue rooftop security and
3:07
general security, and the Sheriff's office team took the rooftop security. I was
3:12
on one of those teams for the rooftop security with sniper teams at the capital
3:17
during the actual inauguration, and because of the overlap and the time, we
3:22
had to split our resources. But there's a lot tall Hasse has a lot
3:25
of resources in that way. But there were no Secret Service sniper teams then
3:30
they didn't bring those. I don't know what they do when the actual president
3:34
is here, typically they don't. They don't have sniper teams on rooftops because
3:38
they're not outside events. So my experience would be somewhat limited as it relates
3:43
to large outside campaign events, although we have done campaign events for other people.
3:50
Typically they're inside, but just know that the Secret Service will come in.
3:53
They will do a survey, they'll do a scouting visit, and they
3:59
will with local law enforcement to chain and command. They will sit down,
4:02
they will brief. Everybody has an operational plan, all right, that's shared.
4:08
They should have communications channels established so that people can talk to each other.
4:12
There's a command post established so that communication is shared freely. That information
4:16
should get around real quick. I mean when we were doing inaugurations, and
4:19
I'm sure they still do. You have everything from Secret Service to FDE,
4:24
different state agencies uniformed and playing close all over the place. And then you
4:28
have those people in positions up in the air. When we do that,
4:32
we're looking at open windows, we're looking at rooftops. Let me let me
4:36
stop you for a second. You talk about a sniper team and a we
4:41
give us a little bit more. It's a two man team. Okay,
4:45
two person teams excuse me nowadays, and so you have a primary shooter and
4:49
then you have a spotder typic. You know, both of them are qualified
4:54
the same, they can both do the same thing. You might have one
4:58
primarily looking through binoculars and another through a rifle scope. You've got somebody who's
5:01
going to be designated to take that shot typically, but it changes. You
5:06
know, everybody has a rifle, everybody has binoculars. Everybody is responsible for
5:11
looking a lot. But the teams not technically primarily focused on just rooftops.
5:15
They're looking at the crowd, they're looking for suspicious action, they're looking for
5:18
all kinds of things. So when you look at what happened up there,
5:21
those people had a lot more responsibility than just a rooftop. Thanks for listening.
5:27
It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Back with Charlie Strickland of the
5:40
Talent Training Group. We're talking about his time as a sniper and doing high
5:46
profile events former presidents, governors, et cetera. And Charlie. Let's talk
5:50
a little bit more about that advance planning. You know, when they come
5:57
in and they do a site evaluation, are they determining the spots where they
6:02
will have people positioned, whether it's Secret Service or local law enforcement. That's
6:06
planned that well in events. Now you keep in mind these campaign events as
6:10
they come up, and during campaign season, you have to understand the volume
6:14
of these things that are going on in these rallies and to get the staff,
6:17
especially for a former president although he is the nominee and the leading candidate
6:24
and all that stuff, to get qualified, competent experience people out to not
6:30
for the president but for other people that get Secret Service protection. Sending these
6:35
people out and doing the advanced scouting, working with local law enforcement, it
6:41
can be overwhelming, I'm sure. However, local law enforcement knows how to
6:46
do these things, and it's all they would have to do. In Tyler
6:49
Hasse's call and say hey, we're coming into town, and they could literally
6:54
walk in and local law enforcement would hand them the operational plan and say this
6:59
is what we're going to do, and all they'd have to do is approve
7:00
it. Because there are very very competent, very very intelligent people in those
7:06
positions here that know the area and know the town, know the threats,
7:10
and have a background in providing the same type of security in the same type
7:15
of areas. Don't think for a minute that in that town up there,
7:17
that local law enforcement didn't. They've probably responded to calls there before, they've
7:23
worked security there before. They know that place, So a plan would have
7:27
been in place. They would have had a map, they would have had
7:29
diagrams, they would have had areas that it would have been concerned with,
7:32
what was the threat, what wasn't all that's there, that's not They don't
7:38
have to reinvent the wheel when they come into a place. I mean,
7:40
if there was an event at the Civic Center here in Tyle Hasse Lord,
7:44
They've done so many there. I mean, he just take an old out
7:46
plan, get out, changed a few things, and go, this is
7:47
what we're going to do. It's not rocket science. Before we get to
7:50
the specifics of the moments of the shooting and the reaction of the snipers,
7:55
which we've talked a little bit about off the air, let's go back to
7:59
before there was ever a gun that was in the direction of the former president.
8:05
What were the mistakes made leading up to that? Well, first off,
8:07
they should have had now that that rooftop that even though it was it
8:13
wasn't so severely pitched that somebody couldn't be on it. It was I've been
8:16
on call outs behind a rifle where I literally had to hold on to the
8:20
peak of the roof with one hand to keep from sliding down it while I
8:22
was handling the rifle to the other hand. I mean it, and I'm
8:24
scared of heights, but you still do what you have to do. That
8:28
roof could obviously could be easily be accessed. There should have been somebody on
8:33
it. Now the problem with that is if you put somebody on the roof,
8:35
then your counter snipers, your snipers look and they have to make sure
8:39
that's the person. But there you make sure they're easily identified. You can't
8:45
always put somebody on every rooftop because of downtown town has to think about it.
8:50
When we do events down here, we're worried about somebody six hundred yards
8:52
off in another building that has line of sight on the Capitol. It's complicated
8:58
you, but it wasn't there. It wasn't there. Would have been very
9:01
simple, and I think the okay, so they obviously didn't have a So
9:07
long before you have an inner perimeter, you've got secret Service securing the president,
9:11
and then you've got an inner perimeter and outer perimeter and you've got people
9:15
roving around. Okay, it for this kid to have been able to get
9:18
into the perimeter like that, particularly with a rifle. And granted it wasn't
9:22
the inner perimeter that he was in. He wasn't in the event, right,
9:26
Okay, he was outside the event, but he was seen one hundred
9:31
and thirty yards away and seen. I want to get to that. We're
9:33
gonna we gotta pause here real quickly. Okay, we're going to come right
9:35
back, Charlie Strickland with us. We're going to talk about that. Thirty
9:39
minutes when he allegedly was confronted and photographed by a law enforcement officer. W
9:43
FLA on your phone with the iHeart radio app and on hundreds of devices like
9:48
Alexa, Google Home, Xbox, and Sonos and Ihearts radio. Season in
10:00
one minutes past the hour, got some time here with Charlie Strickland of the
10:03
Talent Training Group. Perfect person to talk to about the events that unfolded Saturday.
10:09
Thankfully, Donald Trump was not killed. Sadly, tragically, someone else
10:16
was and others injured. Charlie, we go back to the spotting. Law
10:20
enforcement spotted this guy with what the guy initially thought was a rangefinder, and
10:26
they took a photo part at the state police. State police basically disregarded it.
10:30
Where's the mistake made? Uh? Well, Terry v Ohiah says that
10:33
you can detain someone if you suspected a crime has been or is about to
10:37
be committed or is being committed. They had every right to go approach that
10:41
person and question him on hey, what is that in your hands? What
10:45
are you doing? And nobody would have thought twice about it. So,
10:48
hey, man, what you got in your hands there? Let me see
10:50
that? What are you doing with a range finder? You know? Now,
10:52
first off, I only want a kid would have used a range finder.
10:56
It's one hundred and something yards. You don't even have to you don't
10:58
have to take raine into consideration at that distance. And if he scouted this
11:03
thing out aeat of the time, why was he doing that? But you
11:05
know, so what he did. He's a kid, you know, he's
11:09
like twenty years old, but still he's a kid. And he's technical,
11:13
technically minded. He's an engineering student or had a degree in some sort of
11:16
engineering, and he's kind of a little bit of a nerd. He's intelligent
11:18
guy. Should they have ever lost sight of him? No, they should
11:22
have the minute they saw that. Now for a citizens said hey, there's
11:24
a guy at a range finder and here's a picture of him, and the
11:26
law enforcement has a duty to then put out a bowlow tell everybody, hey,
11:31
we need to look for a guy that looks like this and this is
11:33
what he was allegedly doing. And if they even if you know, it
11:37
wasn't a weapon. So I don't know what to stop Trump from coming on
11:39
stage or anything until they found him. But they had it there been seen
11:43
with a weapon, that would have been different. So yeah, they should
11:46
have gone and found this kid. They should have detained him. They shouldn't
11:48
have passed it along. They should have went right then and said, hey,
11:52
man, what you got in your hands. That's a no brainer.
11:56
Let's move forward. We know that one and a half to three minutes before
12:01
the shooting began, he was seen, he was videoed, he was visibly
12:07
crawling prone along the roof. They're they're screaming at police, they're screaming to
12:11
Secret Service at that point. What were the mistakes? Well, everything should
12:18
have been the minute law enforcement knew that they should have transmitted on the common
12:22
channel. They should the people on the snipers on a rooftop should have been
12:26
told we have somebody on this roof and that number that building would have been
12:30
named or numbered or something, and they should have been staring at the top
12:33
of that roof. Now, that roof was slanted and where that kid was
12:35
crawling up the roof would have been out of sight of those snipers because of
12:39
the pitch of the roof. And if you watch the videos, he's low
12:43
crawling, he's berey crawling up there below the ridge cap of that building,
12:48
So they wouldn't they would not have seen him, and if they did see
12:50
him, they would have seen the top of his head. They wouldn't have
12:52
seen the rifle that he was sliding along the ground the rooftop trying to get
12:56
up there. So what you know, they're not sure what they have without
13:01
clear communication. But at that point, wouldn't it have been prudent to simply
13:05
say, get President Trump off the platform until we secured this if it was
13:11
yeah, I mean, if it was me. Of course, you know,
13:15
he's not one to just run off the stage at the mere drop of
13:20
the hent of a threat. Understood, But at the same time, he
13:22
also does three hour rallies, So what's a couple of man, Well,
13:24
I don't know what the people that were that were handling President Trump knew,
13:30
and without that knowledge, it's hard to say. But in a perfect world,
13:33
yes, there's a person on a rooftop. We need to get you
13:35
down, get him to a position, getting back to the limo. You
13:37
know, I'm sure that was a bulletproof limo. If nothing, they're going
13:41
to get him to a position of safety. Resolved the issue and let him
13:43
come back up. And he go up very eyes. You know. The
13:46
world is trying to kill you know whatever. But that should have been done.
13:50
But I don't I don't know what type of communication was given to the
13:54
team that handles them versus the ones on perimeter. The fact is local law
13:58
enforcement. I hate to go back to this because that's me. Local law
14:03
enforcement was given the responsibility to secure that building and they didn't and they didn't
14:07
put anybody on the roof. And who showed up or didn't show up.
14:09
They had dozens and dozens of state and local law enforcement and I include state
14:15
in with local YEP there and their job was to secure these buildings. How
14:20
do you and I don't care how many. You could have had an army
14:22
inside the building, But unless you have somebody out there watching the rooftop,
14:26
watching the perimeter, if nothing else. If you don't have anybody on the
14:30
roof, you put somebody on opposite corners, and your job is to watch
14:33
that and make sure nobody cross it. How complicated is that? It's not?
14:37
The ball was clearly dropped, you know. So, yeah, there
14:43
was ample opportunity for them to have prevented this from happening. And honestly,
14:46
if they had approached this kid when he had the range finder or binoculars or
14:50
whatever and spoken to him, he probably would have given up on his plans
14:54
because any level of resistance would have stopped this from occurring. Well, at
14:58
that point, he's got to have his rifle nearby. I understood he was
15:01
carrying it in a some kind of backpack or something. The bottom line is,
15:05
regardless, they would have probably had ample reason to arrest him. But
15:11
if you have a if you have a forty eight or fifty something inch long
15:15
backpack, that's kind of a clue. I mean, that's not your standard
15:18
length. No, I mean whatever. He apparently had a ladder stashed in
15:24
some plants nearby, and that is how he got up there. But well,
15:28
how does that happen. Yeah, I mean, how do you not
15:31
notice the ladder and then just move it? Get it out of there?
15:33
You got a guy with a tactical bag and a ladder that he just bought
15:37
at home depot walking up to it. They do have presidential I mean,
15:41
come on, does that? How does that happen? How there should be
15:46
some hit the head of the Secret Service, the head of whatever team was
15:50
it put that plan together, probably a police chief or some other people all
15:52
need to like go find an island and move on it somewhere. But they
15:56
all need to quit or get resigned. Asking the question you want the answers
16:00
to The Morning Show with Preston Scott on News Radio one hundred point seven WFLA,
16:10
coming up to thirty six minutes past the hour with Charlie Strickland of the
16:12
Talent Training Group. Talked about his background as a sniper, trained snipers and
16:18
being involved in details involving former presidents and what that all looks like. And
16:25
then we've kind of transitioned into the events of Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania,
16:30
and I want to ask Charlie your impressions, your analysis of what happened from
16:37
the sniper's perspective. Okay, from the law enforcement sniper on the rooftop and
16:41
looking at his actions, what I saw was very clearly he's scanning, looking.
16:47
All of a sudden he hears shots, something happens. He startled because
16:52
he wasn't expecting that. You got to figure how many times he's been on
16:53
a rooftop doing this type of work, and then all of a sudden something
16:56
happens and he came off the skull. Because you're looking through a scope,
17:00
you're looking at a magnificed, magnified image. You don't see the whole field
17:04
of view. He came off of the scope to see what he could see
17:07
with his eyes. That's a subconscious move. He had to look and take
17:11
in the scene and see what it was. He recognized where the threat was
17:15
coming from. He went back to the scope, back to the rifle,
17:18
and very quickly was able to engage. I applaud his actions. I don't
17:23
think he could have done any better at that point, given the limited information
17:26
that he probably had. Because where that where the shooter was coming up over
17:32
that ridge cap on it slanted roof, slightly slanted roof. He would have
17:36
popped up and not presented much of a threat. And then you look and
17:38
there's a white roof, and behind that from that angle was probably trees and
17:45
and things that blended in. So you're not going to have just a head
17:48
with a white background behind it, or you know you're going to be trying
17:52
to pick that out. So I think he did the best he could under
17:56
under stress. He performed very well. He was very well trained, in
17:59
my onion. Unlike the secret Service agent that couldn't find her holster and had
18:03
a vacant look on it. Let's talk about that. That was critical incident
18:07
stress in Actually that's a pure example of critical incident stress. Tonelvision, auditory
18:15
exclusion, reduced cognitive ability, all the things. She did not anticipate that
18:22
it occurred, and she sort she crouched down behind all the people that were
18:26
moving to president. She's out there. She can't find her holster, and
18:30
she holsters that gun every day when she puts it on, takes it off
18:32
at the house or should. She's probably been through all kinds of advanced firearms
18:36
training. Couldn't find her now. Physiologically, women who wear at the waistband
18:44
like that are disadvantaged because they're built different than men. Men can wear on
18:49
the waistband and reach the holster easier. For a lot of women, particularly
18:53
shorter statued women, that pistol is almost up in their armpit and it is
19:00
very difficult to reach. And that's not her fault, and that's not really
19:02
a training issue. It's the fact that when you choose gear that rides that
19:06
high for concealed carry, a lot of times rehold string is not and it's
19:11
really not that important. Now she gave up and went back and just started
19:15
carrying it again. And I saw some images where she was actually standing the
19:17
crowd, which I there again I can understand, but looking at the look
19:21
on her face and her body language, she was in that critical incident stress
19:25
mode where she was not reacting well. And I think that's a lack of
19:27
training and lack of preparedness and lack of evaluating their performance. And you know,
19:33
sometimes you put and I don't know her, but I would say,
19:37
you've tossed in a weak link in the chain. And I don't think it's
19:41
because she's a woman. I think it's just because they felt like they had
19:44
to put somebody in there and before we run out of time, going to
19:48
the shooter and the motive. Well we got another segment here. Well,
19:52
yeah, we got another. So I still think that if you put your
19:56
a team, you put your a team out there. They don't have those
20:00
issues. Now I did. They're in those times like that. Law enforcement,
20:06
federal law enforcement, state law enforcement. You have different tiers. I
20:10
just don't think you put someone who is not on that that should not be
20:14
at the tip of the spear, at the end of the spey. You
20:17
don't put them at the tip of the spear. I mean, you're disadvantaging
20:19
yourself this. There's plenty of places you can put people like she'd have been
20:25
great on the rooftop. Yeah, but that wasn't They don't put secret services.
20:30
There's for her to be in the light of let's put it that way.
20:33
I just well, and I don't think you'll ever see her in this
20:36
position again because of the image. But I think they learned a really valuable
20:40
lesson when it came to staffing there. Again, not because she's a woman,
20:45
because she's a poorly trained, poorly prepared, poorly trained, poorly prepared
20:49
agent period. And we're back Charlie Strickland with me from the Talent Training Group,
20:57
and uh, leaning on his background and knowledge of these types of situations,
21:06
and uh, we're going to end with the shooter himself not to name
21:11
him. You know my policy on that, and I think you agree with
21:14
it. I don't even know his name. I don't want to know his
21:15
name. I ignore it. You have some thoughts though, Okay, So
21:21
you know that you always go back to and we all want to read their
21:26
their their, uh what's you call it when they write the thing manifest manifesto.
21:30
I want to read there. We always we always want to know.
21:32
And I teach a lot of actor shooters courses for responsive act shooter courses,
21:37
things for for nonprofits and government entities and and businesses and whatever in churches and
21:42
everything else. And we're we do this out it. We've got one coming
21:45
up in the first week of August, uh out there through one of the
21:51
conceal carery insurance providers that we work with, and uh, they requested specifically
21:55
that that we go teach another one because of this in reaction to it.
22:00
So I look at these and always throw a slide up of all the active
22:03
shooters mass murderers and talk about the lack of a pattern because they are from
22:11
so many different diverse backgrounds and races and religious leanings and all that. However,
22:18
there is a very common pattern amongst particularly younger white males, and those
22:22
are the bullied, slightly nerdy, which is nothing wrong with being a nerd,
22:29
but the there's a bit of a pattern, and this kid fits that
22:33
pattern almost to a t. And the reason I say this is because people
22:37
question, Okay, well, okay, why did this happen? Well,
22:42
in my opinion, and this is just my humble opinion, I see an
22:47
active shooter. I see a person that fits the profile perfectly. If there
22:51
is a profile, and if this had not, if this event had not
22:56
fallen into his lap, like ten miles from his house and afforded him an
23:00
opportunity to live in infamy. I mean his his his name, his face,
23:07
his his his story, or whatever it is. I think this kid
23:11
would have shot up a school in the next six months. I think he
23:15
would have gone to a mall. He would have gone to a school.
23:17
He would have done something far more deadly and far more tragic. He was
23:19
primed for it based on everything that I see. This just gave him a
23:25
chance. I don't even know that he didn't like Trump I think I think
23:29
that deep down, this kid was waiting for an opportunity to do exactly this
23:34
type of thing, and so he would have gone into a school, he
23:37
would have done something like this. He just he just had a perfect opportunity
23:42
for him to make a name for himself because he wasn't overtly political, he
23:47
wasn't overtly vocal about anything. He was a quiet kid, didn't even have
23:52
much of a social media presence. As if you said, yeah, so
23:55
why did he do this? I think it was just the perfect opportunity for
23:57
him to become somebody. And we're all not we but the world has given
24:03
him everything. He's accomplished everything every active shooter every wanted to do. He's
24:07
got his name in the news. He's gonna he's the most famous one.
24:12
He's beat them all at their game. Because you said, in his mind
24:18
he thinks he killed Trump, I think he did. I mean I think
24:21
when he died, when that bullet went through his skull, I think that
24:23
in his mind he saw he fired a shot, he saw Trump go down,
24:27
he fired a few more follow up rounds. I think he died thinking
24:30
that he killed President Trump. I mean, that's what the last thing that
24:34
he saw other than small thirty caliber projectile coming straight in his face. But
24:40
I don't know that he saw that. Yeah. In closing, is there
24:45
anything moving forward that matters? Knowing now what we know that the Iranians have
24:52
allegedly put a hit out on Trump? Other than I think to myself,
24:56
a real professional would have killed Trump. The other well, I will say
25:02
that if I were going to any political events with Trump there, I wouldn't
25:07
be looking out windows, I wouldn't be going on rooftops, and I certainly
25:10
wouldn't be acting suspicious or exercising a whole lot of my Second Amendment rights to
25:15
open carry in some of these states where they do that stuff, because you're
25:18
going to be shut down. They're going to lock him down tight as a
25:21
drum. Don't get your feelings hurt, because this is going to change the
25:26
way this stuff is done and for a long time to come. I know
25:30
Trump likes to have these big events. I think he may see although you
25:33
know, I looked at the expression on his face and I saw his actions,
25:37
and I'm I'm it changed my opinion of him to some degree. I
25:41
still think he's a bit of a jerk. I don't really want to go
25:45
have coffee with him, but I support him politically. I support his his
25:48
his his actions as president, hopefully to be president again. I certainly am
25:52
voting for him, but it changed my opinion of him just a little bit.
25:56
I think he actually has some of the I'm of the quality fortitude that
26:03
uh and I think the whole world seesed the fortitude that he had after that
26:07
and then compares it to who's in office now. And I think if we
26:10
can get Trump back in office and our country has a chance of maybe taking
26:14
that leadership roll back again. And so I think if anybody was on the
26:17
fence, they certainly ought to go in this direction now. But that's just
26:21
my opinion. Next for the time today, Yeah, sure, Charlie Strickland
26:23
with the Talent Training Group again. Find him online talent range dot com.
26:26
Forty seven passed