Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate

by Crisis of Character- A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience

  Our finale drill was a demonstration for President George H. W. Bush. We incorporated all of the major attack scenarios at a little fake village set in Beltsville, Maryland’s James J. Rowley Training Center. The center’s major building has one side designed to look like a grand hotel and the other side to look like an embassy. I stood in awe of being so close to the president.

  The drill was a dog-and-pony show typical for the president, but my UD class got to be a part of the mock convoy procession. The president shook hands with role players posing as rope line greeters. Then someone pretended to pull out a gun and the president was removed from the kill zone while we went behind the mock hotel entrance to giddily watch the mock-rocket or improvised explosive device attack on the convoy. Someone put a little too much sauce on the last explosion. The blast nearly shattered a nearby window, threatening to spray us—and the president—with shards. Bush loved it!

  Replacing my classmates and me wouldn’t be too much trouble, but the president being hurt in a Service training accident would have been very bad. Life in the Service always seemed a few pounds of trigger pull away from a funny story—or a massive shit storm.

  Each drill was designed to make lessons stick. They say, “Amateurs train until they get it right; professionals train until they get it wrong.” That may not sound right, but here’s what it means. When you train until you “get it wrong” it means you’ve trained until you’ve discovered new, out-of-the ordinary situations that you might have to deal with later on—and which might get you or someone else killed. If you’ve already encountered them in training, you’ll be prepared for them. If you encounter them for the first time in the field, well… good luck… because you’ll need luck at that point.

  One such lesson put us in a position that tested decision-making skills even when we thought the drill tested only reflexive firing and marksmanship. Because it was a live-fire exercise, our perception was that when the target appeared, we were supposed to shoot. At the end of the drill, each student, seeing their shot placement and reaction time, would high-five their partner. Then when we saw the target up close, our eyes widened as the instructors asked why we chose to shoot an innocent, a crazy person, someone trying to commit suicide by cop, someone falsely accused, or a now-deceased victim of miscommunication.

  “Oh shit,” we’d mutter, staring down at our feet.

  We felt terrible, stunned, embarrassed, and racked with self-doubt, but it was a valuable lesson. It wasn’t only our blood we were worried about. If that were so, it would defeat the whole purpose of our being posted in the first place. Sweat in training saves blood in real life.

  Right after shoot/no-shoot drill, they’d tweak the scenario. The recruit didn’t shoot but got shot by the “innocent” from the previous drill. Whoops again. I realized that I had to accept the risks of my job; there were scenarios in which I might not live. I had to be at peace with death so as to survive the mental burden of the job. Winning didn’t necessarily mean getting out alive or unscathed. If I couldn’t accept that, the job wasn’t for me.

  The Secret Service Uniformed Division ranks among the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agencies. Title 18, Section 3056 of the United States Code bestows upon an SSUD officer more arresting power than any other agency’s agent or law enforcement officers (LEOs), including the Secret Service agents. Trained in situational investigation, we’re licensed to carry our firearms and arrest anyone anywhere the United States flag flies. This includes U.S. territory, even abroad. Agents can’t give so much as a parking ticket. And as for SSUD, we, by law, don’t need a warrant to make an arrest or invade someone’s privacy. From our many “death-by-PowerPoint” classes, we knew the constitutional authority in making arrests. That’s especially helpful when suspects try to lawyer their way out of cuffs by spouting legal jargon to intimidate officers.

  At my June 1991 graduation, my parents, siblings, and my Genny had such pride in their eyes. I hoped I was finally paying them back for everything they’d given me. My new badge seemed to weigh more than I would ever be able to carry. I saw the words “U.S. Secret Service,” “Uniformed Division,” and my name on the back, my own ID number, and maybe most important, the words “Worthy of Trust and Confidence.” Responsibility hung heavily on my shoulders but my sense of accomplishment and purpose was uplifting. With that badge against my heart, I absorbed the oath that I had taken—to protect the people, the Constitution, this nation—and its president.

  4.

  TO THE WHITE HOUSE

  I started at the White House in late July 1991 with Officer Leslie Coffelt on my mind; he was the only White House policeman to die in the line of duty, sacrificing his life to protect President Truman while the president resided at Blair House, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House during its renovations. His story demonstrated how one minute things are fine and in the next second two assassins can turn everything to complete shit and a giant gunfight. I felt that I was standing in big shoes.

  Yet any Uniformed Division (UD) officer or special agent (SA) will bluntly tell you, “You know what it’s like to be in the Service? Go stand in a corner for four hours with a five-minute pee break and then go stand for four more hours.” That’s the “action”—99 percent of the time. Have Hollywood make that movie! But for me it was a dream.

  I was first assigned to the White House fence line, the perimeter of the White House grounds, the first defense for ground-based assaults and assassination attempts, but far more likely the key to interdicting intelligence gatherers (people up to no good, casing the joint for future action), fence jumpers, pot-shot shooters, and various troublemakers. For all its prestige and grand history, the White House is a shithead magnet. The UD faces all the crazies who think they can solve the world’s problems by running (or flying) into the White House and performing some ludicrous stunt.

  When the Executive Mansion was first built it was the president’s private living quarters, nothing more. Though visitors need considerably more representative and/or financial clout to see the president, it still remains the people’s house in many ways.

  Yet the taxing 8:00 p.m. wake-up calls for an 11:00 p.m.–6:00 a.m. night shift and similarly taxing two-shift days never gave me a case of the Mondays or had me in a grumpy mood. The introductory six-month “hell period” had me jumping from bed and doing physical training (PT) before shift start on the White House grounds. By policy, during the first two and a half years, a UD officer could be terminated without a written reason. It was leadership’s insurance in case someone wasn’t liked, didn’t fit in, was talking out of school, or clearly wouldn’t be able to hack it in the long term. Our character was constantly tested. Character was the strongest tool in the Secret Service arsenal.

  My first arrest occurred when I walked to lunch. Two bums were fistfighting right in front of me. “Come on, guys!” I pled. “I’m friggin’ hungry.” Bums would often make trouble just so we’d arrest them—and give them the shelter, food, and medical care they couldn’t or wouldn’t provide for themselves. “Public urination, public intoxication, and fighting is not tolerated here, sir!” That was my new-guy mentality.

  But I soon learned from the sour looks and heavy sighs of the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department that my diligence was highly unappreciated. Many of these homeless troublemakers were down-on-their-luck people whose minds had snapped from hard times. They came to D.C. thinking that if only the president would listen, their problems would be solved. But some were not indigent. They simply chose that life. How do I know that? Because the full might of the Secret Service ran background checks on them. Soon, nothing surprised me.

  A woman clutching her child’s hand ran toward me. “Officer! Officer!”

  “What is it, ma’am?”

  There was a man in the park, let’s just say, pleasing himself in full view of everyone, even children. She was new to D.C.; by now I wasn’t. I knew him by name; we’d arrested him many times before, and I wa
sn’t going to give him the satisfaction of arresting him again. Nor was I going to get the evil eye from the Metro PD for bringing him in to add a notch to his already voluminous rap sheet. “We are not bum-catchers,” seasoned officers would growl. All we would do was shoo him away as if he was a seagull at a picnic, yelling, “Get the hell out of here! Go on!” Our background check had revealed that he had $40,000 in savings and was a snowbird traveling to Florida in the winter and to D.C. to soak up government benefits the rest of the time. Unbelievable? You don’t know D.C.

  My energetic enthusiasm and sense of workplace cooperation during the first six months working the fence line and at other posts created a rapport with fellow officers. Our typical UD “action” was to strike up a conversation with, question, and if necessary, detain suspicious characters. We looked for people wearing trench coats in the summertime or the “tourist” taking pictures of our security measures. We would often scare them off, detain them, or inspect their cameras pending an investigation—the more they insisted, the more we insisted. The greatest shot a law enforcement officer takes is the one he or she prevents in the first place. We wanted anyone engaged in pre-attack reconnaissance to return to their counterparts and say, “Security is too tough.” Appearing tough saves an incalculable numbers of lives.

  I was on a vehicle patrol and we got a call for backup from a K-9 officer. All I heard was her location and something like “crazy man with a knife.” Fifty yards across a D.C. park, a lady held back her police dog and the man standing off in front of her. I knew I could reach them on foot faster than circling the Jersey barriers by car. I hopped the barricade, drew my pistol, and sprinted. The dog was ready to engage, to tear flesh. The man was within the rarely discussed “twenty-three feet rule”—if he sprinted at us he could potentially plunge his knife in, no matter how many times we shot him. There simply wouldn’t be enough kinetic energy to push him back. With each stride I closed the gap on my own effective shooting range. I yelled out to let her know that I was in her field of fire. If he charged and was on drugs we had to shoot until he stopped advancing. I yelled. She yelled. Her dog was pulling, snarling, demanding to tear into the man. I got to within twenty feet of him. The sight of three officers (admittedly, one four-legged) and two guns pointed at him made him freeze. His eyes met mine.

  “Put the weapon down, motherf—er!”

  I didn’t have to shoot. No one died. We won. He wasn’t holding a knife, but it was a rigid foot-long oil dipstick sharpened to a shank and duct-taped with the crudest of handles. It was nasty! The K-9 officer, Bell,* observed that her assailant wore so many layers of clothes that he could have wiggled free to stab her dog before the K-9 took him down. If Bell had shot, it would have been justified, but she bided her time, hoping for a better solution. Together we defused the incident.

  It didn’t make headlines—but these events ride a thin line. Any small change and anyone could have been seriously injured or killed. Such was life. A year later, a similar incident occurred. A man had taped a knife to his hands and refused to back off. This time the officer shot, fatally wounding his attacker.

  Such incidents don’t happen every day—but they happen. My most frequent service to the community was looking tough and giving directions to some government building, just as Officer Coffelt had done. Our most common arrests were for bum fights, disorderly conduct, suspicious activity, or fence-jumping.

  The White House fence is clearly scalable by loonies and potential suicide bombers. It’s never been raised or made more secure because of the White House Historical Association—a testament to bureaucratic bullshit. Instead of a simple fence fix, more manpower gets deployed, and the Secret Service take over more of D.C., making streets pedestrian-only or closing them off from public access entirely. But I wasn’t worrying about that in 1991.

  Local university fraternities thought it was funny to haze newcomers by making them hop the White House fence, touch the fountain, and run back. The Secret Service discreetly informed nearby colleges that the pranks needed to stop. It removed some pressure, but people will keep trying until we send a clear message: There is no chance of success. Electrify the top rung, make it two feet higher, or put up another fence behind the other.

  Fence-jumpers have been increasingly successful at penetrating deep into our secure area. On September 20, 2014, a knife-wielding fence-jumper successfully ran into the Executive Mansion; he was tackled by an off-duty agent walking through the mansion at the time. A creeping liberal mindset fueled the problem. Old-timers warned me of it when I first came on board: an odd balance of ensuring protection and not offending anyone’s feelings. But we need to empower the warrior mindset, not the liberal one. The White House isn’t a kindergarten in which to teach grown people about the value of no trespassing, and private property.

  Every federal agency’s solution is “more” and “grow.” More manpower. Bigger budgets. Expand the secure area. Close off parks and streets to the public, traffic, or make streets pedestrian-only. Why do people jump the fence at the White House? Because it’s climbable—that’s why! Whether mastermind terrorist or idiot criminal, they all think success is possible.

  I’ve had many men and women look me dead in the eye and try persuading me they needed to see the president. You’d better believe I stopped them. When someone came to us at the fence and said, “It’s vital I see the president immediately—a matter of national security!” we knew they were crazy. “If the president would only say a prayer—I’ll personally tell him that prayer—and say it while holding three rocks in his hand, all the world’s problems would be solved!” a lady exclaimed to me, holding up three normal-looking rocks. She believed it so fervently!

  To such persons we nodded and said, “I understand, sir [or ma’am]. You want to head over there.” We’d radio it in and direct the person to special entry control points ready for their arrival and any sort of suicide or attack they might attempt: lighting themselves on fire, drawing a weapon, slashing their own wrists. It bought time to study their movements, survey the surrounding area for other activity, and check for unnatural bulges or weights in their clothing. Officers employed thick, flame-resistant, stab-resistant wool blankets to rush and tackle such wackadoos. It’s a method that had been tried and retried often. Simple, thick wool blankets work too and require zero hesitation on an officer’s part.

  By the time any seriously mentally ill person came in contact with police, it was a systemic failure. We’d take the seriously mentally ill to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a psychiatric facility, where they’d be committed, treated for a day or three, and then released. When we saw them again, they’d be less trusting, bitter, and off their meds. I underwent a hell of an education in the real world in our nation’s capital.

  In October 1992 I was patrolling the Ellipse park to the south of the White House in an unmarked van. Three long-haired, bearded guys dressed in blue jeans and green surplus Vietnam-era fatigue jackets were moving calmly and purposefully in tandem, cleaning out a white van and throwing bagged items into a trash can. The van was labeled as a telephone company vehicle but the men obviously weren’t in company uniform. I ran the plates over the radio to our headquarters, Bandbox.

  They radioed back “stolen”—and routed backup vehicles. Our three suspects moved like us—like military. One was scanning, the way we do, and spotted me. Silently he signaled to his associates. They boarded their van calmly but rapidly. As the spotter entered its rear door, I spotted his dagger, a fighting knife, pointed upward under his shirt. Only someone trained in knife fighting would conceal it that way. Reachable by both hands, it was placed where he could deploy it lightning fast.

  They headed east on E Street toward Fifteenth. I followed closely. They knew the jig was up but I hadn’t hit the lights yet, and they hadn’t bolted yet. We silently maneuvered. I wanted to stop them at the construction barriers surrounding the yet-uncompleted Reagan Building. The radio net was clogged with officers closing in, but we were running
out of time. I had my short 12-gauge shotgun out and hidden below the dashboard and hoped another police car would box them in on the other side. We were in the perfect location for a gunfight, but only if we could block the intersection. And if I could ram the rear doors of the van, they’d have only two points of exit, and I’d have an ideally narrow field of fire.

  If I had to exit my vehicle while shooting through my window, sure, I’d enjoy some cover in the concrete Jersey barriers, but no cover stands up forever. We were stopped at the light, each biding our time. They watched for traffic to grow so as to run the red light, dart through an opening, and hamstring my pursuit.

  They ran that light and bolted down Fifteenth, snarling me in traffic. I put pedal to the metal across the Fourteenth Street Bridge, to I-395, and then to I-95. I radioed my position to Bandbox: I was in Virginia.

  Bandbox relayed my watch commander’s orders: “Break off. Turn around, and come back.”

  The hell with that, I thought, but it absolutely was an order. I couldn’t be insubordinate, but I knew these guys were up to something seriously evil. The presence of the combat knife solidified that assumption. My watch commander should have trusted my instincts. Twice I pretended I didn’t hear the order. Suddenly I saw Virginia police closing in on my tail and was immensely thankful. I looked down at the speedometer: 120 miles per hour. Weaving between cars, we swerved from lane to lane. Our vans wobbled and shook.

  My prey changed lanes once more. A UD K-9 officer following me called over, “Watch out, Gary, they’re gonna lose it!” I took my foot off the gas so I wouldn’t run into their van as they flipped. But that driver knew his stuff. He just wobbled—and then accelerated again! The chase was still on. Each lane change lurched our vans and every bump rocked our suspensions. The state trooper was still catching up, and I wasn’t letting up. I passed a sign for Kings Dominion amusement park. Hell! I was near Fredericksburg—way past my zone and in the weeds with my watch commander. I gritted my teeth. I planned to jackknife them into spinning their car into the median but my little Dodge Caravan couldn’t close the gap fast enough. Just fifteen miles from Richmond, long after that K-9 officer had bowed out, I had to bow out, too. Furious, I raced back to D.C. just as fast because Bandbox kept asking for my location and I kept stalling.