Alabama's Morning News with JT
Sgt. Betsy Branter Smith wants to know more about people seeing the shooter before shots rang out
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Well, we had just been there about 10 minutes. And we got a spot to where we could see the teleprompter. And we could hear the audio. And once Trump started to speak, I was watching him. And then my wife kind of nudged me. She was standing next to me and said, "Hey, what's going on behind us?" And when I turned around, we saw a younger kid running through the crowd. And somebody had spoke up, said that the guy had a gun. At first, I just thought it was somebody trying to get a better vantage point of the rally. And I didn't think too much of it. So I went back to listening to Trump. And then once somebody said that he had a gun, all chaos ensued. And everybody was screaming at the cops, you know, to get over there. And the problem was the police officers were too close to the building. They could not see him where we were at. We had a perfect vantage point of him. And we were trying to tell them he's right there. He's right there, but they just couldn't see him. Yeah, just incredible. And Betsy joins us now. Sergeant Betsy Brandner Smith is a retired police officer and now spokesperson for the National Police Association. Been in law enforcement and training for over 20 years. Sergeant, welcome in. Thanks for being with me. Okay, good morning. You know, it seems that we're all Monday morning quarterbacks after the fact. And during the situation like that, obviously very intense, very, what's going on? We've got to make decisions. Where are we? But when you settle down and take a look at this, talk to me about how the breach could have happened like this and the Secret Service now pointing fingers at local law enforcement for outside the perimeter responsibilities. How was that roof left unattended? And once in fact, people did see something going on there. Should it have gone quicker for them to react and get something done about that guy? Well, there's your issue is what, you know, here's the thing. You know, let me start over. This is, we all have the benefit of kind sight bias. We know the ending of the story. What needs to happen is the director of the Secret Service needs to stand before the country today. I hope she does this today and explain what happened, how it happened, where mistakes made, you know, because there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that went right about this. But this young man on a rooftop 150 yards from Donald Trump is a horrific breach. And the more we all speculate about it, the more conspiracy theories grow. And frankly, the more frustrated the public gets. So we, I think the biggest issue that we have right now is we need to see some leadership and we're really not seeing it. Well, that's what's happening when you get DEI hires in positions of, you know, that big at the Secret Service. But with that said, had you been there and somebody walked up to you and said, hey, there's a guy up on this roof here. It seems to me that local police went like, okay, all right, calm down. We'll take a look. I mean, should that actually, actually what happened is, you know, we now, we now know that two police officers went to the roof. There was no ladder, nowhere to, for them to gain access. So one officer climbed on top of the shoulders of another officer and was able to get up there to see. This is the, you know, we're hearing bits of this story. Yeah. We have the confirmation on this story that the officer got on the shoulders of another officer, peaked up there and, you know, the shooter saw him. He saw the shooter as he ducked back down because he's standing on another guy's shoulders. He fell and then the shooter, he kind of rushed the shooter's shots. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, had I been there, you know, again, I know the ending of the story now. Those officers couldn't see who was on the roof. What we need to look at is why wasn't that roof covered in the first amen. I have been, I have been on these kind of details as a local cop. The secret service comes in. They come in days or weeks before everything is looked at from the air, from the ground. And the rooftops are one of the first things in the pre-planning of these kinds of events that are covered. Sorry. That's just so, you know, that goes back 50 years. You know, hindsight on all this Monday morning, quarterbacking this, we're able to watch it in slow motion. And yeah, everybody's got opinions now. And you're right. I agree. This director or the head of Secret Service needs to address the nation and put to rest some of these conspiracy theories out there and clear up some of the misinformation that's out there. But in discussing who's in charge of an event like this, I keep hearing discussions about inside the perimeter and outside the perimeter where Secret Service is in charge of inside the perimeter, local law enforcement takes care of outside the perimeter. Who determines the perimeter, and was the ball dropped with local law enforcement? These types of events are absolutely run by the Secret Service. So they determine where, who's going to be where, how many people they're going to need, what is the perimeter, the inner perimeter, the outer perimeter, all of that. Obviously, they use local law enforcement in each one of these types of events. But the local law enforcement, and again, I've been involved in these. The local law enforcement officers do not make the decisions about who's going to do what. That is absolutely on the Secret Service. So what would happen in a situation like this when the advanced team would come and they'd say, okay, the crowd's going to be here, the stage is going to be here. We're going to drive them in through here. And then agents literally, the team would scan where Donald Trump, all the places where Donald Trump is going to be, where is the prompt are going to be, all those things. And then you just simply look out around and see where the vulnerabilities are. So I think that's why people are so stunned that this young man could get up onto a rooftop to have a line of sight to the former president of the United States. And there was no one with binoculars, a drone, an actual human up there. This building just seemed to be left. And I know it's some kind of a factory. Usually, roads are shut down that it seems like a lot tighter. This is a fairly suburban rural area. And as you look at all the aerial photos, again, hindsight bias, it seemed a pretty easy place to lock up and get down. Yeah, you mentioned the fact that it was a rural area as opposed to downtown in a major city where in downtown, major city, you've got these high rises, thousands of windows and buildings. And there could be anybody sitting behind a window. But in this situation, there may have only been a dozen or so hotspots, so to speak, where somebody could perch themselves. And if you're standing there where Trump was looking around in a circle going, that building, that building, that tree, whatever, you think, okay, well, there's a line of sight 150 yards away. There's a building there. What are we doing? So, you know, when you talk about what actually did go down and what happened, would you have done anything different, setting up and covering this? Well, I mean, you know, sure, that's easy for me to say, but I would in analyzing the area, the photographs and the videos that I have done, I have sat down and analyzed this. There is more, I would have had obviously more roof coverage, and I would have shut down traffic further out because I think, you know, this was a Saturday, it's not a work day. I think you could have inconvenienced people a little more because, you know, we, you know, we're all focused on a sniper, but you also have to think about one of the things, especially at any kind of political rally, is you've got to think about, you know, the people inside is somebody going to try and brush the stage and understand, you know, most people really aren't going through magnetometers, all 20,000 people. And so this is a huge, huge undertaking for law enforcement, and I do also want to focus on all the successes, you know, sadly, right, we've got two people in the hospital. We've got one, one father and husband, Tragedly killed, but we have Donald Trump was live on stage last night with a bandage on his ear. So there were, there were a lot of successes, and I, for people who didn't see him walk in, his secret service last night, a lot of the same guys that were with him on stage in Pennsylvania, and boy, were they tense. Yeah. Well, I, I agree with you. There needs to be a big statement from the director of secret service and addressing the nation and answering questions, press conference, whatever you call it quicker than later. I agree with you there. Well, Sergeant, I really appreciate you. Thank you for your input this morning. Sergeant Betsy Bratton or Smith retired national police association spokesperson. Thank you. Lucky land casino asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky lucky in line at the deli? I guess. I'm in my dentist's office. More than once, actually. Do I have to say? Yes, you do. In the car before my kids' PTA meeting. Really? Yes. Excuse me. What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I never win and tell. Well, there you have it. You could get lucky anywhere playing at luckylandslots.com. Play for free right now. Are you feeling lucky? No purchase necessary. Boy, where everybody by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply.