LE Weapon Handling During The Assassination Attempt

By Greg Ellifritz Active Response Training

If your social media feed looks anything like mine, you've been deluged with photos, videos, memes, and speculation regarding the failed assassination attempt against former President Trump. Among my friend group (a lot of cops and firearms instructors) the primary shared discussion has been about the poor weapon handling displayed by a certain female agent on Trump's close protection team.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch this short video showing the woman unsuccessfully trying to put her gun back into her holster. The example of poor weapons handling happens around the 15 second mark.

This is truly unacceptable performance for someone assigned to guard our former president, but I don't think we can place the blame solely on the agent herself. I think we have three primary issues in play.

1) Equipment Issues

I've seen this same problem crop up with lots of female and shorter male officers. The agent is short-waisted and a bit chubby. She's wearing her pants very high around her waist and has a fairly high rise belt holster.

She is also wearing soft body armor. She can't see her holster mouth or “look the gun in” while  reholstering. Her instructors should have fixed this.

If she had lower-waisted pants or a holster with a slight drop shank, she would probably do just fine. She also has fairly prominent hips. Having her holster shank slightly offset would also help to push the gun a little farther away from her body to aid drawing and reholstering. Unfortunately, it's likely that no one ever told her this (which goes into the “training issues” discussed in the bullet point below) and she doesn't care enough to figure it out on her own. That's quite common in the law enforcement world.

Take a look at the photo below.  It shows a BladeTech holster with a dropped and offset shank. It carries the gun lower on the waist and creates some space between the gun's grip and the agent's body.

Short-waisted people and women with curvy hips often find a holster like this is much easier to use.

The problem is that a lot of law enforcement agencies are more concerned with uniformity of appearance than practical performance. That's been a point of frustration with me since the day I became a cop. Not all gear fits all people. I'm all for looking professional, but it's OK to have some minor variances in gear appearance to allow people to perform better.

Forcing the agent to use this particular holster and belt combination for “uniformity” purposes is the equivalent of the bosses telling me that I could only cover my 270-pound body with a size small uniform shirt so that everyone looks exactly the same. The concept is moronic and needs to change, but the law enforcement world still prizes appearance over performance and things are unlikely to change anytime soon.

So what if the agent can't holster her firearm? At least all of the agents' concealed holsters look exactly the same.

This issue is a microcosm of the problems in the law enforcement world as a whole. If the entirety of the post-shooting response in this incident doesn't show you that the agencies involved prize looking good over solid performance, you simply aren't paying attention.

2) Training Issues

It appears to me that this agent hasn't spent a whole lot of time on the range shooting in an outfit similar to the one she was wearing on the day of the assassination attempt. This is a real problem for plain clothes agents and detectives at all levels of law enforcement. No one wants to wear a suit to the range.  They end up training in a tucked in polo shirt and 5.11-style cargo pants. They never get practice drawing, firing, and reholstering in the clothes they actually wear on duty.

I solved this problem when I was the range master at my agency by forcing officers to qualify on their duty shifts in the exact clothes they were wearing at work that day. Qualification was separate from training. My officers had full training days four to six times a year when they could wear whatever clothing they liked. Qualifications happened in between those training days just to give the officers some extra trigger time between training classes and force them to operate in the uniform they wore to work every day.

I have another way to mitigate the dangers of working in clothes that don't look anything like your “training clothes.” Do five draws every single day before you leave your house. I've done this almost every day for the past three decades. I put my gun on in the morning and take about a minute to draw my gun five times. That ensures I won't have any issues drawing my gun in the clothes I am wearing that day. It also provides daily practice drawing my weapons.

Five draws a day for 30 years is a lot of practice reps. I'd urge my plainclothes law enforcement officers to adopt the daily draw stroke practice in the clothes that they wear to work.

Another training issue is the fact that most police firearms instructors are male. They often aren't up to speed on optimal gear selection for female shooters. I think most male firearms instructors would benefit from taking a class about training female students from Lou Ann Hamblin, Vicki Farnam, or Tatiana Whitlock.

Vicki Farnam shares her opinion on the training issue in the quote below. I heartily agree with her assessment.

“I have debated about making a public comment on this after making a private one to Greg Ellifritz so here it is.

It has more than a minute or two, but I have taught at their (the US Secret Service) academy. I was brought in to teach the cadre of male instructors specifically about teaching women based on my first book. I would like to think that what I taught had been passed down as new instructors joined the staff. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case.

NO one can be held responsible for what they have never been taught. Until there is a clear understanding for male instructors that traditional holsters/holster placement do not work exactly the same on a female waistband as they do on a male waistband in plain clothes, we will continue to see awkwardness and inefficiency displayed. Of course this can be addressed and corrected, but the problem has to be recognized first! It does not make female officers/agents any less competent than male officer/agents but specific challenges must be met with specific solutions!”

Lou Ann Hamblin shares her experiences as well:

“So, for what it's worth, oftentimes agents have a variety of assignments during their careers. With these come a variety of carry modes. For those of us who have experienced similar situations we know that each mode of carry takes equal, if not more, repetition for mastery. In her case she is carrying somewhat posterior for concealment purposes. In their basic academy setting their holsters are in line with the vertical pant seam. Not surprised that she is attempting to reholster, where she believes, and where the holster would typically be.

Additionally, her freshman or sophomore 15 lbs. is a contributing factor for her inability to find it without first removing or clearing herself out of the way. However, this too is trainable, especially at that level. The Secret Service close protection Executive Protection team still has regulations for a”uniform” that dictate what, and how, the agents wear their equipment.

A note…I am assuming no one in this thread has ever walked an inch in their shoes, including me. A friend of mine, still employed with the Secret Service and a firearms instructor for them, advises that their training is still high end but you never really know how someone will respond when the SHTF. We all like to fantasize about how well we would perform in that type of situation.

I saw the same thing everyone else did and have evaluated it. Additionally, females will always get more attention..usually negative, and there's plenty more where this came from with the 30×30 Initiative. In terms of the “body bunker” it takes big bodies to be effective, not little ones especially when the protectee is not cooperative, for those of use who understand and have maybe done a little executive protection work.

Additionally, when viewing the event I kept screaming at the television ‘Put a helmet on him!!! Where's his fucking helmet??!!!!!' It always takes a tragedy before equipment and training inventories are made in law enforcement regardless of the level and what is at stake. Law enforcement is reactivate in nature. I would not be surprised if Trump has his own security folks supplementing the Secret Service going forward.”

3) Personnel Issues.

The other primary complaint I'm seeing on social media is the fact that president Trump's close protection team consisted of several smaller and less physically capable women.

In an ideal world, all of the president's closest protectors would be taller and wider than he is because they are serving as his body bunkers during any attack. They should also all be physically capable of picking up and moving their protectee to safely. Furthermore, they should be able to shoot their firearms at the level of a USPSA Grand Master and be black belts in a realistic martial arts fighting system.

I agree. I think it would be great if all of Trump's closest bodyguards were 6′ 5″ hulking studs who could fight and run their guns at the highest level. Just one problem. How many 6'5″ hulking competitive shooters and fighters do you see out in public during your daily activities? Our citizens have largely become fat and weak over the past couple decades. Where is the Secret Service going to find these highly-skilled large hulking studs that you want to protect the former president?

Unfortunately, the Secret Service has to pick candidates from the human race. They need bodies. There are massive staffing shortages in every possible level of law enforcement right now. Most larger agencies have been operating with 20%-35% fewer bodies than they had in the pre-pandemic days. No one wants a career in any type of law enforcement job at the present time.

The Secret Service already demands college degrees, squeaky-clean backgrounds, passing a mental health evaluation, and zero evidence of drug use. How many people in the country can meet those standards? Now take that applicant pool and exclude anyone who isn't taller than 6'2″ and anyone who can't deadlift a small car. Throw out everyone who doesn't spend 10+ additional weekly hours on the martial arts mat or at the shooting range. What percentage of this country's population meets this standard? It's infinitesimally tiny.

Then we can bring up the concept of the agents' professionalism and skills at doing their job. Why do you think being a Secret Service agent makes a person immune from the realities of the human condition? How many people are truly “professional” or even “really good” at their jobs in any other occupation? It's a small minority. That's no different when looking at the USSS application pool. Some are really good. Most are OK. Some suck. Have you ever worked at any job where every employee did a perfect job every single day?  I'm betting the answer is “no.”

What's the bottom line?

In this article, I've attempted to outline the contributing factors that generated a sub-optimal performance during a shockingly brazen public assassination attempt on a former president. Lots of you have been weighing in on the tragedy on your social media pages. Most of our commentary isn't going to change the world one iota. 

Here's what you should really be contemplating…

One of the best trained and equipped law enforcement agencies in the entire world failed at their jobs to protect the former president in a public place despite a virtually unlimited budget. Why do you think your local cops can protect you and your family from violent crime? You are on your own. You should train with this concept in mind.

Find the original article in its entirety on Active Response Training.

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