The Team House - What Happens Next w/ The Secret Service? | EYES ON | Ep. 32

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday we are joined by Bill Gage former Secret Service Agent and CAT (Counter Assault Team) member to talk about the fall out for the Secret Service and how this will change the agency  going forward.Find Bill here:https://safehavensecuritygroup.com/home/Find Andy here:Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations/dp/1526750554Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that. So go and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on. And we're really, I'm going to jump right into our guests and then I'll intro the other two, not that the other two are less important. But we're very excited to have Bill Gage back on today, an old friend of the team house also was a senior secret service officer. Actually, that's not the right word, is it? But nevertheless, senior within the secret service under two presidents, Bush 43 and Obama. But also is just a guy who really can lay out some of the complexities of providing security,

which is a lot more than many, you know, many, the public realized what goes into all of this. So anyway, I'm welcome again. I'm Andy Mulberg. Jason Lyons. I'm Dave Park, it says, but it says, I'm Demetri Contacos. And Bill, thanks again for Bill. He jumped on with us on Saturday, like last minute, right after it happened to. He gave us like 15 minutes or so, you know, while things were like,

super fluid and still happening. So I appreciate that, Bill. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. And my running joke, you know, who says the team house doesn't have breaking news. So yeah, yeah, I did that from the parking lot of a grocery store. That's awesome. With my son in the seat next to me and my truck. So definitely a very raw, kind of rough street interview there. So thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of of the team house. And, you know, I do listen to the team house and to Jason, you're and Andy's new podcast as well. So I'm a big fan. Thanks, Bill. Well, you know, before you have to rush up to all the other things and other audiences who are clamoring for your time, what happened and why? Yeah. So, you know, my running joke with my son, who's 15, is he could probably

sit here and give this interview because he's heard me say the same things over and over again to the New York Times, Fox News, Washington Post. I did an NPR interview this morning. I did the BBC, Andy, from your home country, did the BBC here a little bit ago. So, you know, clearly an attack, right, an assassination attempt on a major American political figure, the Republican nominee for president, who happens to also be a former president. So, you know, if we want to back up, like most Americans, I was going about my life. And a buddy of mine hit texting me and said, hey, you better turn the news. on the news and I was watching just moments after it happened and was talking to my wife and I said,

hey, I don't know how somebody could have gotten a gun into the event. It must have been like a 3D printed gun, maybe like a homemade gun, somehow subverted the magnetometer checkpoints, somehow got the weapon in. I was watching more and more video and then I'm thinking did somebody throw a rock or a cell phone because the audio hadn't been released yet, right? So it was just the video of the incident and then, of course, as more in video and then the gunshots are being released, you're getting the audio of the gunshots. I'm thinking of myself, well, all right, so now somebody, now I'm thinking somebody in an elevated position with a, you know,

I don't want to use the term sniper rifle, but somebody in an elevated position with a rifle firing shots. So then, you know, I'm watching the video, and we really did do a bio on here. Andy and Jason, I've been on here a number of times. but, you know, I was on the counter assault team for six years. Counter assault team is a pretty elite unit within the Secret Service, really formed after the Reagan assassination to counter. The Secret Service operates on this protective principle that you learn day one of special

agent training, which is a maximum to the protectee, minimum to the problem. All right. So what that means is, you know, if you're around the protective, you're on the shift, as the Secret Service calls it. I think in England, Andy, they call it close protection. So if you're immediately around the protectee, don't necessarily draw your gun and return fire. You want to give cover to that protector.

You want to cover them with your body and evacuate them away. So Kat's mission is the opposite, which they want to actually, Kat's mission is divert, suppress, neutralize. It's actually in their sort of mission profile. So they want the bad guy to actually, hey, someone's shooting at me. It's not the people around the president. Kat wants to draw their attention and then suppress that attack. So the guys on black that you see on the stage, those are members of the counter assault team that I was a member of for six years.

So yeah, clearly someone was able to get access to an elevated position and get some shots off. If you listen to the timing, the shots ring out. You know, you see Trump grab his ear. And within milliseconds, a second or two, the counter-sniper's are now engaging him and actually eliminate him, right? Eliminate the threat they kill him. The counter-sniper unit, the CS unit is a very stored unit in the Secret Service. They were stood up after the Kennedy assassination. The Secret Service is divided into two.

sections. You have the uniform division and then you have the agent side. It's just the way it's evolved over time. Don't ask me why it became that way, but it's just the way it is. Kind of like the Marine Corps is part of the Department of the Navy or whatever. It's just the way it is. CS, some of the best shooters in the world, their qualification course, one of the final qualification go or no go exercises for them is, I can't remember, but it's, you know, shooting a bull's eye at 500 yards in like three seconds or something. than, you know, from a standing, dropping to a kneeling. I forget their requirements, but they have very stringent requirements.

So if you listen to the sounds of those gunshots, you hear CS engaging him almost immediately. And there's been some media reports. I had a source hit me up that said one of the rounds shot him right in the mouth. And so you guys know this. The brain is the CPU, right? And you want a headshot in that sort of attack, right, to immediately drop.

the threat. Law enforcement generally trains, right, the high target area in here, but those sniper shots want to do that triangle, right? The imaginary line here from your forehead down to your mouth. I know that's pretty gruesome, but that's just the truth of the matter. So, you know, they eliminated the shooter pretty quickly. The shift, those around the President Trump that are assigned to the Trump protective detail, they responded exactly as trained. if you watched the video within a second or two of the first shot, they're jumping on stage. They're covering a...

I think we might have maybe talked about this a little D on Saturday, but it's draped in sort of a flag decorative material around the stage. The Secret Service calls that a dais. But that's ballistic steel around, and it's specifically designed for the protectee to duck behind. And the podium or the dais as a service call it, actually ballistic as well. And you can actually see one of the agents tries to move it out of the way

and it doesn't really, he tries to kind of like kick it and it doesn't really move. You can see that in the video because it's really heavy. Bill, I've got a question very quickly on that. Yeah. And sorry to ramble on my wife tells me I take too long to answer questions. No, absolutely. No, we trust me, we like that kind of ramble. All right. Andy, I'll tell my wife that she was wrong. 100% most wives are most of the time where was that yeah so the the counter sniper piece I would imagine is I mean

incredibly challenging I'd be you know what you can tell us about in this particular instance arguably the problem was relatively easy right it was an AK so it's a I mean I don't mean relatively easy I don't but I meant it could have been much more difficult if the guy was

you know, was trained, had a sniper weapon, and that increases the potential radius of places that he can, you know, he can locate. How do you, how does the Secret Service, when you guys are so, in a sense, dependent on local law enforcement, you know, for those outer cordons, how do you, how do you crack that problem? I mean, location of a, of a sniper or a serious shooter further out to range. Yeah. A lot to unpack there, Andy. So, So the first thing is the advance work. Okay. So CS, the counter-snipers, they are part of the Secret Service advance team.

Every, the secret service is the most elite protective agency in the entire world. Every single agency around the world that provides protection to the world's elected leaders models themselves on the Secret Service protective model and Secret Service protective methodology. So the Secret Service has developed this advance. You know, it's been around since the Secret Service. service, you know, in the 40s and 50s, they started sending agents out well of ahead, well ahead of the protectee or the president of vice president. So a lot of what you're talking about, how do we mitigate these long-range threats or handled during the advance? You have the CS

guys going out and looking at getting up in very high vantage points. You know, I was a part of many, many advanced teams. And CS was sort of a sister unit to Kat. We worked hand in hand with them and their call sign is Hercules is the call sign for the CS units and a lot of times they would get up on a very high elevated position they would have to get on the Jerry lift sometimes it would climb up they would get a fire truck we'd ask the local fire department to lift them up and they would get way high up so they could actually see down off into the distance and see exactly what you're talking about hiding points because obviously they're thinking, and I'm not a sniper. Obviously, I was on cap, but I can kind of understand some of the

lingo here, but it's almost when the CS guys are doing the advance, are kind of thinking like, okay, sniper versus sniper, right? If I were a sniper, where would I go hide? And so if they see places, then they try to block that line of sight with a school bus, maybe a garbage truck. Sometimes you'll see those at events. So that's how the Secret Service in particular, the CS guys try to mitigate that threat is during the advance work and just spend hours up at that elevated position with binoculars looking around thinking, hey, if I were a sniper, where would I attack from? So that's really how they mitigate that threat. And, you know, when the shot gets taken, how did they, for instance, like yesterday, how did they locate him so quickly? Well, I think

Because known shooting positions, it's likely shooting positions. Well, it's a great question, Andy. And it's a question. I was actually speaking with a reporter just before I came on with you guys. And I think for me, that is a very important question that I would be asking. And let me be long-winded here, and I'll circle back. All right. Every single Secret Service event I've ever been on.

And I was part of hundreds, if not thousands of the. these types of events during my career, there was always an issue during the event, right? Someone would report a suspicious person. Hey, I think this guy has a gun. There's an unattended package over here that looks like a bomb. Every single event I was at, there was always something coming over the radio from the command post. So, and I can tell you a couple times. Did I tell the Martha's Vineyard story, the paintballers? I don't, not the other day. So yeah, please. Okay, I thought it so.

So to give you an example of the kind of things that happened during these events. So in 2008 or 2009, Obama was a very young president. He goes to Martha's Vineyard for the summer. I was on the cat team. We had four cat teams for that trip, you know, for four separate shifts. So the day Obama arrives, I'm assigned. The cat team I was on Charlie Squad, we were assigned to cover his arrival at the airport on Martha's Vineyard. So we're taking our positions waiting.

Air Force One's on approach. They're probably about a minute and a half to wheels down. And one of the CS guys comes over the radio and says, hey, I've got a group of armed men wearing camouflage with painted faces with rifles running into the woodline towards their, where Air Force One is going to be wheels down. All right. So holy shit, man. What are we going to do?

So the standard procedure that the service has developed over time is they have a unit called CS Response, which is going to be an agent with a uniform police officer or multiple police officers, will then respond to what they saw. They're not going to immediately just start firing. We're not going to cause an incident by, you know, telling the plane, hey, you can't land, do a touch and go. You know, the media is there lined up with cameras. So major incident here, right?

and potentially embarrassing to the president. And so in this case, the decision was made, and this is all happening within seconds. The decisions made, let Air Force one land will hold Obama on the plane. Do we sort this out? The plane lands. The Massachusetts state troopers go over there, and it turned out it was a group of weekend paintballers

that had no idea that Obama was landing there, right? All the guns were paintball guns, just a bunch of soccer dads, right, trying to do their larping for the weekend. And so I, sorry to be long, wouldn't answer the question, Andy, but, you know, those kind of things happened during these events. And so, you know, I'm asking the same question. I think it broke late yesterday that a police officer actually climbed up a ladder to confront the gunmen. And so I don't know if the CS guys were the ones that, hey, said, hey, local police, you need to go investigate. There's a guy on a roof.

or if there's video now unfortunately I hate to say where I got the source but there's video on TMZ where they were actually someone captured the guy crawling up onto the building so I don't know if someone grabbed the attention of local police and said hey what's this guy up to or if the CS guy said hey can somebody go check him out what's he up to and so either way the Secret Service system worked, it just was a few seconds too late. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it, thank you to someone, it was an in oppressively fast response was, you know, was my point really that too. And, and having been on the receiving end of snipers before I know how difficult it is, especially in an urban environment, especially with crowds, to locate point of shot. So that would, you know, that was remarkable.

So my educated guess here, Andy, my professional educated guess is it came on the radio that we have a suspicious guy up here. So CS's attention was already drawn over there. They were probably looking at this guy. The CS guys have very sophisticated binoculars. And they looked, holy shit, that guy's got a gun. Oh, my God, he's firing. They returned fire and killed him. I mean, I just broke that down, you know, into the five seconds.

there that you know you can hear the audio so it literally happened um some version of that is what my educated professional guess is what so presumably after this i the secret service does a and kind of an after action review and probably you know if they call it that or not um what sort of things would they would you be looking at in this particular incident if you you know if you're so you know the FBI is in charge of the criminal investigation okay we had an assault on a former president so that's a criminal, that's against the federal criminal code. So there's going to be the FBI's handling criminal investigation. Now, what went wrong will be handled by the Secret Service.

I'm sure there's going to be, I think Biden has called now for a congressional investigation. So the things that I would be looking at would be, hey, what footprint, what social media footprint that this guy have? Were there any indications by anyone was any of suspicious behavior, reported, was he posting on anything that was problematic or worrisome? Was this an unusual interest? You know, typically the Secret Service teaches sort of in threat management or threat assessing, you know, typically people just don't snap. They don't just wake up one day and say, I'm going to be an evil madman that happens over time, right? And a lot of times, Jason, I think in the intel community, they call it like leakage or whatever, right? These people are

going to leak out behaviors that are going to draw attention. So that's the first thing is the secret, you know, were there any indications of what this guy's motives were beforehand? That would be the first thing. And then the second thing is during the advance work, did anybody recognize, hey, those buildings need to be covered. So I think- Interesting you said that.

So like NBC just reported that like the- I saw that was a security risk. Yeah. And it was supposedly covered by local law enforcement. But, you know, I've had the same conversation with multimedia outlets. You know, there's a law enforcement recruiting crisis in the United States, and the Secret Service is not immune from that, okay? And they're way short staff for what they need to be,

and we're short staff when I was there. And, you know, listen, it's not like you see on the movies, okay? Everybody walking into that event is not like facial recognition software that's run through a national database and the Secret Service pulls up their DNA, you know, on some database. And, you know, there's not hundreds of CS teams out there that are coordinating drones flying overhead

that have, you know, missiles. It doesn't work like that. And so the Republican convention starts today. You know, there's probably 30 CS teams at that in Milwaukee covering that event. Biden was supposed to speak today at the LBJ library. I believe in Austin, Texas, that's been canceled. There was probably four CS teams at that.

So what I'm explaining to you guys is that the Secret Service, you know, supplies exceeding demand here, or demand is exceeding supply, I should say. So there's limited resources. So the Secret Service has to pick and choose, hey, we only have this amount of, we only have a finite number of CS teams. And this is all we can devote to this Trump event. So one of the things I would be looking at, Andy, is who, who made that decision that two CS teams was enough for that event.

But, I mean, let me ask you something, Bill. I mean, I know obviously in hindsight, it's like, it's obvious. But why, like, if that roof is a security issue, why not plant, you know, a couple state troopers or local law enforcement guys in the parking lot and a couple on the roof and, like, just make sure nobody fucks about? Yeah. And great question. And it sounds like if the reporting is true that that was probably.

are requested. But here's the other thing when you work with local police agencies. Like I said, I was on dozens and dozens of advanced teams. Those local police agencies are also going through a recruiting crisis, right? And they have limited resources. And perfect world, those law enforcement agencies would give you 500 cops to go do whatever. But guess what? They still have to answer 911 calls. They still have to respond. They still have to patrol their assigned areas. So they have limited resources too. So there might have been one or two officers for that entire complex. So, you know, when you work with an agency like the NYPD,

I only have awesome things to say about the NYPD. I had great experiences up there. I think I joked with you guys on one of your shows, Dee, about you get a lot of attitude from the NYPD when you need something. It's like, hey, all right, we'll get to you. Hey, whatever. But man, if you say, hey, I need a few cops. You know, you walk into a room and there's 500 there.

and, you know, some precinct commanders like, hey, here's the guys you requested, where do you want them? But not every agency has those type of resources. I was going to ask you that, too, Bill, if in situations like this, do they just say all hands on deck, local law enforcement, or are they in it? No, no, it's all hands on deck for these agencies. And the smaller the agency, the bigger the sort of requirement that is. So, you know, I haven't looked at this local agency in Pennsylvania. I imagine, you know, Pennsylvania is divided into these townships. So I imagine it's probably, you could probably look that up right now, D, to see what the population of that town is.

And what, you know, the local agency probably has to ask for county resources, the Pennsylvania State Police. So it's limited resources on the local side, too, guys. Yeah, it's a town of 13,000. Yeah. So, you know, if they have their own police department, I would have. imagine it's 10, 10 officers or less, you know, so they're probably going to be asking for county police department and then Pennsylvania State Police support. But, you know, the other thing, too, is, you know, each aspect of Trump's movements require more and more local resources. You have to

have guys in the motorcade, securing the motorcade route. You have to have, you know, police escorts. You have to have local police officers at the airport for the arrival and departure. So it's really a drain on resources. And so a lot of times, you know, when you have a natural disaster, that's why the president will usually say, hey, I don't want to go to that natural disaster right away because my visit will draw so many resources from the local agencies that need to sort of provide police protection to, you know, the citizenry. It's like when the president travels, it's how many C-17s does it take to support him, you know,

when I went to Mumbai, India, there were like 11 C-17s that came to Mumbai. Why. Wow. Yeah. It's not as though he can, you know, just go down range to visit the troops and, and it not have any impact other than on morale. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think some of the war zone trips that the different presidents took where, you know, Obama was smuggled out of the White House one time. So was President Bush. And even then, you know, when he gets on Air Force One is trying to take a classified trip. Air Force One releases this like well-known signature, right, both. visually and then I think they have to acknowledge over the radio to the different towers around the world what they are plus they had I'm trying to think of the term like combat air patrol is not the right term you guys might know but like the there's going to be a fighter escort right around Air Force one so those also you know all these towers around the world are going to be like

hey is that Air Force One right like why is this plane have you know 10 F8 teens, you know, flying with it. But anyway, yeah, it's a big footprint wherever the president travels. What, I mean, typically, how big is the, um, uh, secret service detail when he goes overseas? Um, you know, a relative question, Andy, because you're going to have agents assigned to the individual detail. So if it's the president's detail, PPD, um, you're going to have agents that are on a different shift, depending on how long he's going to be there. You might have three shifts, you know, that might be close to 50 agents, but you're also going to have the post standards, which are sort of the junior agents that go to secure the site, the individual

sites where the president's going to go. So for an overseas visit like India, I mean, there's probably close to 500, 700 agents involved in that one visit. It's like a battalion of agents. Yeah, yeah. And I think I told a story on one of the appearances, D, where, you know, somebody put the wrong gas into the president's limo. And so the president travels with these like mechanics from General Motors. And these are like the world's most efficient, productive, knowledgeable GM mechanics that had to tear this engine apart overnight and put it back together in an airport hangar. So, you know, I mean, there's those kind of people that travel with the president as well.

It's a massive, massive entourage. Yeah. So, Bill, on, you know, I mentioned that when you, when you went through training, I mean, you focused on, I mean, I imagine that the 81, it was 1981, right, the Reagan attempted assassination. I imagine that that becomes, you know, the center point of more than one class, right? I mean, it's focusing on using examples from that. Do you see that happening again here? I mean, is this going to become an iconic event that's taught? Yeah, yeah.

What does it really depend on what comes out? A lot's going to depend on what comes out, but sort of, I don't want to say my running joke, but I have this sort of discussion I have with people where I say, hey, when I join the service in 2002 training was designed around. The agent training was designed around. And I'm going to go way back here. Everyone was worried about Carlos the Jackal, who was an actual terrorist that was running around the world that no one could find. And so it was like all of the Secret Service protective models were sort of set up for Carlos the Jackal, this lone terrorist gunman out there.

70s. What did you say? 70s. It was just before D was born. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So before you were born, D.

There was this guy running around the world. I know Carlos de Jockelis guys. Jesus. That's very interesting. So kind of a lone wolf. Yeah, lone with no local connections, no social media background. That's right. All of that.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm going way back. Like, you know, some of the terrorist attacks that were studied were like the red faction in the East Germany. Like, didn't they kidnap the president of BMW or something? Hans Martin Schleer. Yeah. Yeah.

It was, yeah, BMW Mercedes, yeah. So, so like these, these were what was studied. But as I was coming on in 2002, this was quickly changing, right? Because we had the, I was there six months after 9-11. So we had this sort of mentality change of, hey, we only not have to worry about this lone gunman, but we also have to worry about an al-Qaeda armed organized attack by terrorist groups. So it slowly became, you know, that threat sort of morphed in.

to being prepared for both, right? A lone gunman, a lone assassin on a rope line somewhere as the president is shaking hands, but also this armed, organized assault by a group of individual terrorists, which was al-Qaeda, then became ISIS. And, you know, something that's not really talked about, it's been mentioned in a few books, but I was there when this happened. But in Denver, there were a group of white supremacists. In 2008, when Obama was getting the Democratic nomination in Denver, sort of the coronation, if you will, where he officially takes the nomination, just a day or two before that, a group of white supremacist, aligned with the Hells Angels, they tried to ram through a police checkpoint one night

that were around. I think it's Invesco Field now. I think back then it might have been Coors Field at Mile High. I forget what the name used to be, but they tried to ram through a police checkpoint to assault the event, led to police on a high-speed. chase and then those guys were subsequently arrested. So I bring that story up to say that, you know, also homegrown terrorism now has to be also recognized as a threat because of the Secret Service, right? I mean, with this current political climate, right, wrong or indifferent, there are people out there that hate, literally hate both candidates and will actually, just because of the environment, they'll actually, you know, take actions, sort of that,

we call it the pathway to violence, right? They're going to ascend that pathway to violence just because of their political ideology. Great. Yeah. So what happens now? I mean, like, being going to do a little bit of speculation, like within the Secret Service, I mean, I know everyone's doing the blame game. Like, you kind of got some reports like FBI is like saying the Secret Service fucked up.

And the Secret Service is saying, like, you know, local law enforcement fucked up, which it kind of seems like it did. you know like what happens now in terms of like for lack of a better term hedge rolling yeah well the first thing is there's probably a lot of people yesterday night or this morning a lot of agents were probably like god damn it because you know there's probably hundreds of agents all over the country they got a phone call or email that says hey pack your shit um you're you're flying out somewhere because uh i saw the director this morning has said that they're going to bolster protection at the RNC.

Trump's going to get a more enhanced protection profile. So the first thing it's going to happen, you know, is talk about all hands on deck. You know, there's probably nobody, no agents in any of these field offices around the country because a lot of people probably got some phone calls or text messages or emails that to get on a plane in a few hours. And, you know, one thing that's not being talked about either, D, is when it's all said done, and I meant to mention this. earlier, Andy, you know, those CS guys, they don't operate on a red light green light. They operate

under standard police, U.S. police, use of force standards. The standard for that is a very famous case called Granby Connor, which outlines the police responses to to perceive threats. So when it's all said and done, these agents are essentially cops, right? These CS guys are cops. So they don't have special powers that allow them to. Yeah. Great the ROE as it left. Yeah. And so there is a criminal investigation right now into their actions. Did they use reasonable force?

Did they violate the Fourth Amendment and killing this person? And there's a whole set of rules that go in with that. One of them is called Garrity. So these officers are afforded what's called Garrity, which is a famous court decision, where you have to tell your agency. If your agency invokes your Garrity rights, you have to tell them everything you did. but what you tell your agency can't be used against you in a court of law. They have to do a separate criminal investigation, if that makes any sense.

So those guys that fired, they're subject to a criminal investigation. Now, obviously, they're going to be found that they used reasonable force, right? That guy had fired upon the former president, but still, and typically during police, lethal force encounters, you know, officers badge and guns are confiscated, and they're given legal counsel. So that's something that's not being talked about that when it's all said and done, the guys that pulled the trigger up there are cops that took somebody else's life. Now, obviously, clearly, I think that was a reasonable use of force. 100% they're going to be found that they used reasonable force in accordance with the Fourth Amendment and various court

decisions like Graham v. Connor. But, you know, that's still very uncomfortable. I've known lots of people that have been involved in police shootings and they, you know, talk about how on comfortable that is even when you're in the right, you still have to go through this criminal investigation. So that's one of the things, Dave, so you are, Davis says Dave on the screen, but one of the things, D, you know, the first thing is all these agents probably were got phone calls and emails. Hey, you got to fly out. I don't care if it's your son's wedding. I don't care if it's firstborn child being born. You better get on a plane. And then the second thing is this criminal investigation about the police use of force. So again, who says you guys don't have breaking news?

That's breaking news that nobody's talking about is, you know, these officers that pull the trigger are going through a criminal investigation. So, and, you know, and then the third thing, it's there's going to be all these investigations about, hey, what happened? And they're going to have to figure out moving forward. Are there ways we can mitigate this threat? Are there ways that we can not let this happen again because the Secret Service has a zero fail mission, right? Like this can't happen ever happen again. Yeah. So I would say zero fails a good way, really good way to describe it. You really intrigued me with the comment about the garrity. Is it a guarantee law? But it's, but it seems if I'm right, it provides,

it provides a means for law enforcement to really find out ground truth without, without all the paraphernalia of an investigation. In other words, hey, hey, you know, time out. Tell us what happened. All right. This will not affect you. But tell us the truth so that we can prevent this happening again or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, right, we have a right against self-incrimination in this country. Right. You have Fifth Amendment protections. And you cannot compel me to provide you information that might incriminate me. But they had to carve out this niche. in the law in the in the 70s in this Garrity court decision, I think was Garrity versus New Jersey, or it was a court case in New Jersey. Garrity was the officer where his agency said,

either tell us, well, we want to know or you're fired. And he got fired. And then he sued in this court case, this famous court decision that all law enforcement officers talk about called your Garrity rights. And it's exactly right, Andy. So there's like a public safety exception there. So your agency wants to know, hey, did you use reasonable force when you kill this person, when you shot them, when you tasered them, and you have to tell them what happened. But anything you tell them cannot be used against you later in a criminal case. There has to be a separate criminal investigation. And they talk, there's actually, they talk about a wall. All right.

So those two concurrent investigations, the investigators cannot talk to each other. All right. It's against the law. they can't speak with each other. But they're within the same unit as well. Within the same unit. Yeah. So in this case.

That's followed. That's right. There's a firewall there. So the CS officers that pulled the trigger, you know, what they tell the secret service. The secret service then can't turn around and go to the FBI and say, hey, you know, guess what Andy Milburn told us? He told us X, Y, Z. It can't happen. There has to be a wall there.

So I imagine in the last 24 hours, there had been some very uncomfortable discussions between the FBI and the Secret Service. The FBI probably is demanding answers. But in that particular case involving the agents that pulled the trigger, they have rights. And again, they clearly followed their training. They clearly followed the law and had every right to return force. But there is a procedure in this country we have to follow. That shows an unusually high amount for any bureaucracy. That shows an unusually high amount of common sense.

I mean, I get it. It didn't emerge as a safety mechanism opposed from above. It was a guy challenging based on his own rights. But nevertheless, it's a tremendous safety mechanism. You know, because investigations drag on forever. And departments themselves kind of battened the hatches, don't they? But I think a key part of this is it allows that agency to be open with the media in the sense of not, hey, he did this. You know, it's just, hey, it's up for investigation.

And there's no question of, you know, are you wrongfully standing by him or rightfully standing by him? You know, you've gone. There's a procedure that puts you, I haven't described it well, but I think it's a great system. I'd like to see that in the military, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wasn't there a lot of debate recently in the military about taking the UCMJ away from like the person's commander or the accused commander or something? Yeah. That's for sexual assault. That's not, you know, that's a because that was a case of, yeah, the military officers have lost their right to investigate sexual assault. You know, initially you do a what we call a PI, a preliminary investigation as commanding officer. And you no longer can do that. supposedly because so many officers have somehow fucked that up or tainted their influence. But I'm talking about investigations into deaths, accidental deaths, things like that, negligent discharges, things that go wrong in training or operations that result in blue-on-blue casualties,

all of these things. The Pat Tillman case is a great example, right? You know, I mean, the guys, you know, I don't want to go into details of that case, but guys knew basically what had happened or suspected what had happened. But it, you know, in that whole sorry mess, you know, the army was embarrassed, the Ranger Regiment was embarrassed, and it caused unnecessary suffering for his family. But if they had something like Garrity, you know, because the guys want to tell the truth when it's something like that, you know, there's a period they want to.

But of course, they don't want to, you know. Yeah, yeah. Again, we have Fifth Amendment protections in this country. You can't be forced to testify against yourself. So, yeah, and that's, like I said, those officers that pulled the trigger, you know, have probably already spoken with legal counsel. They're probably already represented. A lot of federal agents and officers are represented by FLEOA, which is called the Federal

Law Enforcement Officers Association, which will provide legal counsel in major uses of force. So I'm sure they've spoken with their legal counsel and are represented by, a lawyer. Bill, let me ask you, are they out of the game now while this investigation goes on? I mean, I'm sure the investigation won't take like forever, but no, it's probably going to take forever. But yeah, they're, yeah, I mean, every law enforcement agency in the country, if you're sworn and you carry a badge and a gun, which the uniform division officers are that are, and these guys that are part of the CS team there that pulled the trigger, yeah, they're going to be relieved of their police powers. They're temporarily relieved.

and again, clearly they did nothing wrong. They followed their training and the law, but there still is a procedure in this country when you take someone's life and they're going to be relieved of their police powers pending an investigation. I mean, that's pretty standard protocol throughout the country. Now, I'll tell you, I went to a training class

once probably before you were born, D, in like 2000, 2001. Yeah, and the guy... most the guy teaching the class was this old retired washington dc homicide detective and the guy had retired in like 1990 but he was now teaching so he'd been retired you know 15 years when he was teaching his class and he said his first day on the job as a dc police officer was in the early 70s and his training officer he gets in a car and his training officer some old haggard you know vietnam vet who's chain smoking and he says hey kid pull up tinder this bodega and he gives the kid a couple bucks and says go in and get me some smokes well this brand new

officer from dc police he walks into this bodega and it's being robbed he walks into a robbery in progress pulls out his gun challenged him kills the two robbers right kills the two robbers and you know their sergeants called to the scene and you know within about 30 minutes they pat him on the back and they're like, hey, great job, kid, let's get back out there. And they go back in their car and start patrolling. Wow. You know, we don't do, we don't do that anymore in this country, right? You know, did you get the coffee? I don't know. I never asked. But yeah, I mean, that's how it used to be, you know, back in the day. It was like, hey, great job, kid. Like dirty hairy. You know, you just go and eating your, yeah, no, exactly like that. And, you know, let's also not forget, you know,

again, breaking news here, you know, let's not forget, it's easy to thump our chest, right, and say, oh, these guys took out a threat. But when you take somebody's life, that can have a traumatic effect. That's a significant life event for you, right? You took somebody's life, no matter how reasonable it was, no matter how legal, no matter if you did your job, these guys might have some trauma with that, you know, so they're probably going to need counseling. A lot of agencies have mandatory psychological counseling. after you're involved in a traumatic event as a first responder. I've been involved in lots of traumatic events from, you know, the death of a child.

I was on a call a couple years ago where a four-year-old had her head crushed, run over by a car. And, you know, my partner at the time scooped up this little girl and ran her to an ambulance, and he was covered in blood and brain matter of a, you know, a little girl. So I don't care how tough you are. that's going to have an effect. And, you know, he came to me and to our sergeant and said, hey, I need to go home and change my clothes. And I don't think I'm coming back the rest of this shift, right?

That has an effect on you. And I mean, I'm sure Jason and Andy military guys, I'm sure you have some perspective on that where, you know, especially the first time you do take a life, right? It can be traumatic. I think probably in the United States makes it even worse. I know people are going to. to criticize me for that. But what I mean by that is when we deploy, we're in a context, we switch. You know, it's not that everything becomes a target, of course not, counterinsurgency.

But the point is that your, you know, your alert, that everything goes up and you are expecting threat. And you have already, you've already kind of, you should have hardened yourself to taking casualties and taking life. You know, I mean, that is part of the preparation, the bulletproof mind. If you're a good commander, you prepare your troops for that. But I think it's so much harder, probably, I had never been a cop, but I imagine it's so much harder as a cop for a number of reasons. You know, operating in a day-to-day environment and then suddenly, suddenly out of the blue being confronted with that kind of tragedy. I think that is probably more overwhelming, I would imagine. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you from personal experience, you know, my daughter's nine.

When she was just a few months old, I was called to the scene of a death of a child. And the child, unfortunately, had a terminal illness. The child was about four years old, had a terminal illness. And they were able to get a little bit of a heartbeat, race the child. I followed the ambulance to the emergency room. and, you know, I go into the emergency room and I have a job to do, right? I have to figure out was this child the victim of abuse? How did this happen?

And so I'm speaking with the father outside the exam room and asking him, hey, how did this happen? And the dad says, listen, we have been to, you know, every elite hospital in the country to try to find a cure. My son suffered from XYZ. As I'm interviewing him, the mom is in the room. or in the exam room, we could hear her whales and telling the son, hey, it's okay to let go. We love you so much. You fought so hard.

I'm listening to that, right, as I'm interviewing the dad. And I try to be, right, I fancy myself a tough guy. You know, you want to go work out, you know, how far, how fast we run in, you know, how much we lift in. I fancy myself a tough guy. That crushed me, man. I did my job, right? It found out that the child was.

not a victim of abuse. That was a terminal illness and left that call. And I went in a parking lot and cried my eyes out, right? Called my wife, you know, hey, can you go kiss our daughter for us and cried my eyes out? And guess what? Five minutes later, I get another call and I have to go handle that. So you're exactly right, Andy. It's a lot different than being in combat in the military where you, you know, you can go to your mission and then you go back to your base and maybe you play PlayStation or watch movies, you know, in law enforcement, you got to go home. And it's just, it's just a different dynamic. Yeah. Wow. Andy? Well, I, you know, that's, that's an overwhelming moment to, I think, to, to, to, to end on because we did promise Bill that we would get him out of

here in half an hour and we had lied to him through the teeth as we have done. But, but who's going to stop him, man? I mean, that was that was not. just fascinating, but really impactful. I usually don't use that term. I hate it, but really was. Thank you, thank you, Bill. Yeah, Bill, appreciate it. Yeah.

And the rest of you for being here. Thanks, Andy, so much. Really appreciate you. Are there any questions, Dee? I know sometimes people post questions. No, because this isn't live. So, yeah, so this is going to go out today later today. Hey, the only question we have, Bill, is we'd like to bring you on again, you know,

as this develops. That's not really a question. That was an instruction. Yeah. Yeah. So I got you. Colonel ain't Colonel Milburn's back. Yeah. No, give you a wife a heads up. I mean, that was terrific. Not just about this particular event, but I learned at time. So yeah. Yeah. So listen, as we as this thing progresses, you know, there'll probably be newsbreaking today tomorrow the next day. Yeah, Dee's got my number, text or call anytime. You know, I'm happy to be a resource. I'm a big fan. Every year, I swear I'm going to make the damn Christmas party and I just have I'm by this year. Yeah, we all need to make a commitment to do it this year. I'm having a separate a separate pond party that you're invited to. I will be there. I got it. Yeah, eyes on might have

its own social deal. I got it. I got it. The real question is why is Jack in Paris with the Frenches? He was actually in Ireland and I think he went to Paris for like a stopover or maybe for a few days with his daughter. Okay. He's back now. Okay. All right. Well, yeah, you guys use me as a resource, call, text anytime. Thanks, Bill. Awesome. Thanks, thanks a lot. Hey, best of luck, guys. Bye, everyone. Guys, don't forget a couple things, little housekeeping. Andy Milburn. Bill, do you have anything to plug? No, right? Uh, yeah, I mean, you know, you guys, you know, I'm a senior consultant with Safe Haven Security Group. Um, we do a lot of security. I know some of your audience are probably not in the market for a security company, but we do a lot of Fortune 500 companies,

physical security, executive protection, a lot of threat assessment, like I talked about, where we're really going into someone's background, whether a current employee, former employee, irate customer. You'd be surprised how many Fortune 500 companies out there, the people that they're hiring these days. And so, yeah, I'm a senior consultant with Safe Haven Security. We've recently done some pretty high-profile executive protection gigs. with some different individuals. I don't want to give their names, but yeah, that's where I'm at now,

Safe Haven and Security Group. Great. All right. So, Bill, assume me that link, and the link will be in description in the show notes. You guys can check it out there.

Andy Milburn, of course, his book is great. Check out his previous episode that we just did with a team house on Friday. It was awesome. Great, really good,

really good, what's been going on in the last two years and an unbelievable Libya story where Andy did not follow the rules, but it worked out well. No, yeah. And Patreon.com slash the teamhouse.

Please help support the show. YouTube is destroying us. I'm not lying. I swear to God, Patreon.com slash the team house. Thanks, guys. This is great. Thanks, guys. Take care, Jans.