This week, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw (D) spoke about how a would-be killer was only minutes away from trying to kill Donald Trump.
Luckily, a Secret Service agent who was looking over the Trump International Golf Club course one hole before the former president saw the gunman’s attempt to kill him go through the chain-link fence around the course. How, then, did Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected would-be killer, get so close to shooting Trump?
“I think there will be a few more people around the edges of the golf course the next time [Trump] goes there.”
That was the exact question that a reporter asked Bradshaw at a press meeting on Sunday afternoon.
The reporter asked, “How did this happen?”
Bradshaw’s answer didn’t do much to ease worries about Trump’s safety.
“There are bushes all around the golf course, so if someone gets into the bushes, they’re pretty much out of sight,” he said. “At this point, he’s not even close to being president. We would have had this whole golf course ringed if he was. But since he’s not, protection is only in places that the Secret Service thinks are needed.”
“I think there will be a few more people around the outside of the golf course the next time [Trump] goes there,” Bradshaw said before complimenting the Secret Service.
That is, according to Bradshaw:
Trump does not get extra protection or even the area around his golf course shut down because he’s not the president right now.
It is up to the Secret Service to decide where to put security and safety tools.
Bradshaw’s answer, unfortunately, brought up more questions than it answered.
It is true that Trump is running for president and not the current president. It is also true that the Secret Service protects the president a lot more than other people.
Trump, on the other hand, is not your average politician or protected person. He is a former president and he survived an attempt on his life just two months ago.
This brings up an important question: What does Trump, who has been president, a major party presidential candidate, and the target of a murder attempt, need to do to get real protection from the agency that is legally supposed to protect him?
