• Etterra@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Well it’s not like a cop at a Trump rally is going to going to impede the ambitions of a second amendment loving white kid.

    • bobburger@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      The FBI identified Crooks by analyzing his DNA, officials told local CBS affiliate KDKA, as he did not have any identification on him.

      This is the part that makes me go wtf…

      How did they go from sampling his DNA and identifying him in that short amount? I don’t remember the exact time, but it seemed like it took about 5 hours.

      Edit: It’s been a long day and I guess my timeline is way off. I thought they identified the suspect last night, but apparently it was sometime early this morning. That makes the turn around time a lot less wtf.

          • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            I remember registering my fingerprints as a kid as part of a Cub or Boy Scout activity. In retrospect that was really messed up.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Maybe not. When I did it for my kids, it was to create a sample that could be used in an emergency, to be held by the parents. It was never given to anyone. No one collected it. It not get added to some database somewhere

              • MeThisGuy@feddit.nl
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                5 months ago

                if you’re even just accused (and imprisoned) of a felony you get DNA swabbed, guilty or not

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Trying to assassinate the presidential candidate definitely justifies checking the “expedite” box.

          • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            He still technically holds the title of president. You never lose the title, just the powers. Carter’s still President Carter. JFK is still President Kennedy. Trump is, extremely unfortunately, still President Trump. None of them get powers, but the title is forever.

            Which, fair imo. It’s a position only 45 or 46 people out of millions of Americans have ever achieved (idk how they count the one dude who skipped a term). Keeping that title for life sounds fair to me.

            • Corigan@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Which is normally fair. However after his never ending pushing of the election being stolen and claiming he was president still, I think it is necessary to clarify he is no-longer president.

  • memfree@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    I was hoping daily beast’s source link had more info, but no. I even looked for the full article and it is equally devoid of details. From apnews :

    A local law enforcement officer climbed to the roof and found Crooks, who pointed the rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder, and the gunman quickly fired toward Trump, the officials said. That’s when U.S. Secret Service gunmen shot him, the officials said.

    Honestly, I don’t blame the office for not getting pointlessly shot. I hope the officer immediately messaged the situation, but it was probably too late.

    In fact, one of the news sites last night showed the shooting from an angle where you could see the anti-sniper to Trump’s right (left side of TV screen) as the shots came in.

    I’d swear I could see the anti-sniper’s recoil hitting BEFORE Trump was shot. Don’t quote me on that, though. I’m not an expert.

    • constantokra
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      5 months ago

      Bad take. If he’d gotten shot, the snipers would have immediately killed the shooter before he could reposition and take more shots. It would have saved a guy’s life and kept a former president from being shot, so definitely not pointless. And he likely had on body armor so he had a lot better chance of surviving than any of the people in the crowd did.

        • constantokra
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          5 months ago

          The guy was also pointing his gun at a whole lot of people who weren’t trump. Do you extend your statement to them too because they support trump? At least many of the media weren’t there to support trump. I’m sure at least some people were there to see the spectacle rather than support him. Should their value be disregarded as well just for being around the guy? I get the attitude that trump has asked for this. I don’t think it’s right to say everyone else there asked to be shot at too.

          The basic problem I see is that we keep treating police like it’s their job to protect people and when they don’t we say, nah it’s ok, that’s not your job.

      • memfree@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Alright, I admit that from a tactical point of view, if the local cop got shot it would have alerted other security and maybe no one would have died … though at such short range, it would be likely that the cop died instead of the firefighter in the stands.

        That said, I still don’t blame the cop – who I presume never had Secret Service training – for taking cover when someone aims a gun at them. That seems like an instinctive reaction that you’d need serious training to overcome. I expect it to take a few seconds at least to figure out how to approach the situation before you stick your head back up for easy targeting.

        Better solutions might have been to either: a) have at least one person on that group of rooftops and every/any other roof-group in advance, or short of that b) when rally-goers said there was someone on the roof with a gun, radio that info FIRST and THEN look. It is possible that the latter happened, but no one passed the information forward and the cops haven’t owned up to the failure yet, but IF that happened, that sort of detail would tend to come out later rather than immediately.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          This is not going far enough. If you’re pointlessly shot, you don’t have a chance to know whether you saved someone’s life or wasted yours and let the gunman get away, plus you’d rightly be fired for carelessness leading to an unnecessary death. From this tiny amount of detail, it seems like the cop did everything right. He’s got the guy contained and had an opportunity to call it in.

          This is not the movies where cops win by disregarding risk and injuries, and somehow never dying: cops win with radios and bringing in more cops.

          Hell, if the perpetrator shot in a hurry as described, this cop did save Trump’s life

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    The article says the gunman then immediately turned and fired at Trump, so I’m not sure that there’s actually a problem with what this officer did. If he’d tried to charge the gunman, he’d immediately have been shot himself, then the guy would have shot at Trump anyway.

    • bobburger@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      From what I see what went wrong is letting the speech continue after receiving a report of a gunmen, and then even worse they let the speech continue after visually confirming the gunmen.

      The cop should have radiod “investigatig a gunmen on this rooftop” and as soon as he did they should have stopped the speech and gotten Trump to safety.

      • myliltoehurts@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        I could see them let it go on after a report - I’d expect they get a lot of threats and possibly fake reports too.

        But for the rest… yea… as soon as he was sighted the security detail should have been on the move to cover trump.

        Considering how people get shot for looking like they are thinking of a weapon when near the cops, it’s shocking that the counter snipers didn’t immediately shoot him once he aimed the gun at the officer.

          • myliltoehurts@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            I’m neither a cop nor a secret service agent, but I would expect that they cooperate to some degree at least on these events. Doesn’t even need to be much, just stand a cop with a radio next to an agent with a radio somewhere so they can immediately pass on information to each other and relay it to their respective colleagues. Armed shooter sighted on roof seems like a worthy bit of intel to wanna pass along.

            If they don’t have the means to relay information to each other… that seems rather shortsighted on both sides.

            • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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              5 months ago

              There will be a site command where all LE coordinate for this exact reason. The command vehicle/tent will have some relay equipment which allows radio interoperability but it’s not typically used unless needed. Just coordinating via the separate branch commanders is typically preferred.

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            They put the radios on the same channel. Or they have a command center with a relay, or even just a person repeating messages.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        Maybe. I don’t know what their threshold is for validity of a report before they take action.

        I do think that if the officer had tried to intervene and gotten shot, the guy would have immediately been shot by one of the snipers, maybe fast enough that he wouldn’t have gotten a shot off at Trump. All I can do is speculate; I don’t know what their policy is. But in his place, I probably would have done the same kind of thing, like putting my hands up and taking a step back until I get reinforcements or snipers take him out. But I guess there wasn’t time for that.

        But yeah, after confirming a gunman they definitely should have hustled him off the stage.

    • jeffw@lemmy.worldOPM
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      5 months ago

      It’s a weird story. It claims he aimed at the cop, who then backed off. There probably was enough time do do something but it probably would’ve risked the cop getting himself shot.