KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Security expert Karl de la Guerra, founder and CEO of KGI Protective Services said he wasn't necessarily surprised there was an assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
"Unfortunately there were a lot of indicators, a lot of threats that had been coming in over the last year, or more," de la Guerra said. "Threats come in on former presidents and, and current presidents on a daily basis. Those need to be balanced through what we call protective intelligence to make a determination as to what's valid, and what's not."
He said it's easy to point fingers, but in reality, there are several levels to securing an event like this one, and there is still an ongoing investigation.
"We don't want to second guess officers or agents that are on the scene," he said. "We weren't there. Now, it's very, very easy to armchair the quarterback if you will a situation like this, but we weren't on the ground."
He mentioned a key difference between this attempted assassination of Trump and other events like it throughout history.
"The majority of assassinations and attempted assassinations that we have seen of political and important figures around the world in the last few years have been conducted from a very close proximity," De la Guerra said. "Not from a far distance of over 100 yards from a rooftop with a rifle. That's something that we generally see in movies."
The expert said moving forward, security across the nation will change. He said we are already seeing more visible representation of security from Trump's security detail.
"Normally the tactical unit from the Secret Service that protects the president, called the CAT team or counter-assault team. Generally, those folks are, are out of sight, out of mind but constantly present," he said. "As soon as the incident occurred, you saw the agents in black uniforms with rifles, with tactical gear on, they made their presence immediately known as is their protocol."