"Thank God he wasn’t killed!” This is how one of Nelson Mandela’s former head of security expressed relief that the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was not successful, noting that the US was on edge and violence would have followed.
Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday when a shooter fired at him during an elections rally. It appeared the bullet grazed his ear.
The FBI identified the shooter, who was taken down by the US Secret Service, as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, from Pennsylvania.
Rory Steyn, who served as the Gauteng head of the VIP Protection Unit protecting Madiba between 1994 and 1999, said there would have been violence if Trump had been killed.
The former Lieutenant Colonel in the South Africa Police Service now runs the NSA Global Security Consultants firm, who were recently contracted to head up security for the United States leg of the T20 Cricket World Cup in June.
”My first reaction was ‘Wow it happened, thank God he wasn’t killed,” he said speaking on Talk Radio 702 on Monday afternoon.
Steyn said when he was in the US, he felt like the country was on edge and the assassination of Trump would have likely tipped the scales over the edge.
”Had it been successful, it could have led to more deaths, violence and destruction of property, because that country is seriously on an (knife) edge,” he said.
Assessing the situation from a security lens, he said it was tough to judge on two-minute video clips that were being circulated on social media.
He said it was best to wait for the investigation and that it was too early to judge at this stage who was or was not at fault for the shooting.
He said he had great respect for the US Secret Service, since their first assignment together during Mandela’s Presidential Inauguration in 1994.
“They are so thorough, the number of times they read the routes and create alternative routes and they have hundreds of eyes and ears on the ground, but you understand that, because they have lost three presidents who have been assassinated before,” he said.
Four US presidents have in fact been assassinated. They are Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F Kennedy. They were assassinated in 1865, 1881, 1901 and 1963 respectively.
“So they do have a bit of reputation of coming to cities and turning them to mini Washington DC’s when their presidents are there. But having said that, there is no doubt they are highly professional and highly capable outfit.
“One of the basic principles of protecting territory, is you must dominate the higher ground, so your counter sniper teams think like snipers and they get into that position,” said Steyn.
Steyn referenced an eyewitness video of a man who said they alerted the police of someone on the roof with a rifle. He said he believed the eyewitness account was credible, but he still believed the saga needed to be investigated thoroughly.
Steyn said it was likely someone made a mistake, but he was waiting for the investigation to commence and conclude.
”It’s such a mistake to judge an entire incident on a two minutes clip on your smartphone, that’s why I say let us just be patient and let people do their work.
“Obviously we do not want cover ups, we want the truth, and we need to understand if there were mistakes made, what will we learn from them,” he said.
IOL