Serious questions are being raised about the effectiveness of the level of security provided by the Secret Service after a suspected drunk driver came dangerously close to Vice President Kamala Harris’ motorcade on Interstate 94 in Milwaukee on Monday night.
A 55-year-old Milwaukee man was driving the wrong way, heading west in the eastbound lanes of I-94, heading directly toward the vice president’s convoy.
Despite the high level of protection of the motorcade surrounding the vice president, the driver was able to approach the convoy moments before Milwaukee County sheriff’s deputies intervened and stopped him just in time.
Police say the man had an open bottle of alcohol in the car he was driving and believed he was intoxicated.
A 55-year-old Milwaukee man was caught on camera driving the wrong way and heading west in the eastbound lanes of I-94, heading directly toward the vice president’s convoy.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was traveling in her motorcade moments after Milwaukee police stopped the wrong-way driver.
After field sobriety tests were conducted, the man was arrested on charges of operating while intoxicated and recklessly endangering safety.
According to the arrest report, when officers told the driver that he “almost hit a vehicle in the VPOTUS motorcade,” he was very shocked and did not remember entering the freeway or nearly hitting another vehicle. He also stated that he had no intention of harming Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone associated with her campaign.
While no one was injured in the incident, the fact that the driver came so close to the vice president has raised growing concerns about how such a safety breach occurred.
In a statement, the Secret Service said: “We are aware of the incident involving a motorist traveling in the opposite direction on the freeway while the Vice President was in her motorcade. We thank the Milwaukee Sheriff’s Office for their response that allowed them to stop to the motorist and take him into custody for DUI.’
The Secret Service, charged with safeguarding both Harris and her Republican opponent Donald Trump, is facing scrutiny over whether current protocols are sufficient to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The assassination attempt on former Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania in July was “preventable and should not have happened,” according to a bipartisan investigation into the shooting detailed in a House task force report released Monday.
Despite the high level of protection of the motorcade surrounding the vice president, the driver was able to approach the convoy moments before Milwaukee County sheriff’s deputies intervened and stopped him just in time.
The car was caught on surveillance cameras when the vehicle, driven by a drunk driver, could be seen passing over a pair of police cars while heading in the opposite direction.
A new independent report on Donald Trump’s first assassination attempt described the “stunning security failures” surrounding the event at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
He described the “stunning security failures” surrounding the event at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
One protester was killed in the shooting and two others were injured.
Members of both the U.S. House and Senate have repeatedly questioned why the Secret Service didn’t do a better job communicating with local authorities during the campaign rally.
Of particular concern was that a building that had been widely considered a security threat was unsecured, allowing gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to gain access and open fire.
The lawmakers in their report focus on “fragmented lines of communication and unclear chains of command” between the Secret Service and Pennsylvania state and local police, but place most of the blame on the Secret Service for the failure to security.
“Thomas Matthew Crooks could have been approached by federal, state and local law enforcement officers at several crucial times,” the report states.
It was especially worrying that a building that had been widely considered a security threat was unsecured, allowing gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to gain access. In the photo, Secret Service agents stand next to the body of the possible murderer after the shooting.
Crooks is shown walking through the Trump rally before opening fire hours later, killing one attendee, seriously wounding two others and grazing the former president’s right ear.
The lawmakers added that throughout the afternoon, “as Crooks’ behavior became increasingly suspicious, fragmented lines of communication allowed him to evade law enforcement” and climb onto the unsecured roof where he would eventually begin to shoot.
“Simply put, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows that the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have occurred,” the report continues.
The preliminary findings are drawn from thousands of pages of documents, nearly two dozen transcribed interviews with state and local officials, as well as a series of classified and unclassified reports from senior Secret Service and FBI officials.
The report does not provide much progress, as the Secret Service’s botched response has already been documented by an independent commission, an interim Senate report, as well as congressional testimony and media investigations.
The House report, like previous ones, does not identify specific people who may be guilty, but at least five Secret Service agents have been assigned to modified duties.
The task force also began investigating a second assassination attempt on Trump last month, where a man with a rifle camped outside one of his golf courses in South Florida. Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, appears in the photo.
FBI agents search the side of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September after what appeared to be an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The director of the Secret Service at the time, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned shortly after the shooting, saying she took full responsibility for the mistake.
The task force, made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, presented some of the report’s findings during a public hearing last month.
Lawmakers say they plan to issue a final report, including recommendations to prevent future assassination attempts on political candidates, in mid-December.
The task force also began investigating a second assassination attempt on Trump last month, where Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, camped out with a rifle outside one of his golf courses in South Florida.
Earlier this month, fears of a third assassination attempt against Trump arose when a man was arrested outside his rally in Coachella, California, with two firearms and a high-capacity magazine.