well Chris Phillips is the former detective Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police who was also former head of the National counterterrorism Security office so there's very few people in the UK better qualified to have this conversation with Chris uh you will like all of us have been reacting within the last sort of 13 or 14 hours to this absolutely horrendous news that Donald Trump narrowly avoided assassination uh from a counterterrorism perspective this must really worry you yeah I mean it's an incredible um failure really by the counter sniper team who are there solely to pick
up that threat and clearly they weren't looking in the right direction or or if they were they were very slow to react I I mean I've deployed counter um sniper teams before and and you know certainly in the UK they're really really good at picking up they they know where the threat's likely to come from from their perspective uh uh and they see a threat and then they literally cancel the event and the principles taken away so what happened here I do not know um from what you've seen in fact I tell you what what
we're going to do if that's okay I said we'd play a different clip can we just play the clip of what actually happened and can we keep Chris's microphone up and I'll my microphone up as well and Chris can you do me a favor and just sort of talk us through we'll do it together if it's okay with you if you don't mind and we'll just talk through what's happening what is happening what the Secret Service are doing and what you think should happen is that okay can we do that yeah of course can we
something said take he's talking here then the shots so he's got done Chris take it from here Secret Service jumping in what should should happen What should be happening at this stage well the the team did really well to reduce the height of the uh of the principal get him down get him under control uh and then secure him as best they can the the the real problem came from the counter sniper team now what what they do in or what we do uh in the UK as well is they will place police snipers up
on the highest point looking down all the potential thre now this uh this guy that shot Trump was actually lying on a roof and uh I've seen another video actually Peter and it it looks as though they were actually looking at him but didn't react to his threat and at this at this point in the video that that people who are watching will see you've got to remember a vast majority of our uh of our audience is is listening on the radio so just going to describe this so he's down Trump is down in the
ground for for quite a few seconds they're not in the process of pulling him away um why was he ding the grind for so long do you think and of course he raises his hand and says uh and and says fight fight and people say USA USA and so on I mean should he have been allowed to do that I think it's it's amazing that he did but should he have been allowed to do that well my understanding is and and there's also a little piece in the video the audio that you might hear was
that the uh the sniper's been taken out so they knew at that point I think that the the threat had been removed but you know quite simply the the key Point here is to get him away from the the the Potential Threat now quite often they will have um bulletproof glass in front of why was that that not there I don't know and that's that's a question that whoever organized the event will have to answer in due course but of course the the the actual bullets the the uh I mean I've seen the video of
the the guy that was on the roof is actually not straight ahead is off to the uh as we look at it if you like off to the left of picture uh and that's why he's uh he's got hit in the ear rather than the uh right rather than the middle of the head so you know this was an incredibly lucky Escape uh we we we've always known about this uh threat you know we we've had snipers before in buildings you know right back to JFK uh and police and Security Services take action to to
try and stop this and counter this threat and it clearly just didn't work we've had a statement from Donald Trump he's written I think on Truth social uh which is the the social media Network he says thank thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday as it was God Alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening we will fear not but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiant in the face of wickedness our love goes out to the other victims and their families of course he's referring to the one person who was killed
and two people who were critically injured as well in the attack uh Donald Trump continues we pray for the recovery of those who were wounded and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed in this moment it is more important than ever that we stand United and our true character As Americans remaining strong and determined and not allowing evil to win I truly love our country and love you all and look forward to speaking to our great nation this week from Wisconsin uh djt and then the sort of emoji
for thanks with the the hand saying thank you what do you make of that Chris yeah I mean it was a incredibly lucky Escape I don't like God uh God saving him I think the fact that the the guy missed uh and and actually when he was shot um sorry when he was shot he wasn't Trump wasn't even moving very much it wasn't as though he was much of a moving Target so it was uh unfortunately or fortunately if you like um a bad shooting rather than rather than anything else and of course the the
other question I would have here is that there's a tendency in the US to to place loads and loads of people fans behind this suspect which of course puts them at serious risk of this kind of incident which we saw unfortunately one man's died I think and at least two others are badly injured so so this is a you know a means of carrying out their speaking to show themselves off to the crowd but actually is a a difficult one to secure indeed I just want to play this extraordinary interview that the BBC correspondent Gary
o' Donahue got uh we've played this a couple of times but it's so it's it's incredible what this eyewitness has said I'm sure you've seen this Chris but there may well be people who haven't or heard it so just want to play just the short interview with a an eyewitness to the gunman and what the gunman was up to let's just play this and then get your reaction Chris so we walked up and we noticed the guy crawling Army you know bear crawling up the roof of the building beside us 50 50 ft away from
us so we're standing there you know we're pointing we're pointing at the guy crawling up the roof and he had a gun right he had a rifle we could clearly see him with a rifle absolutely um we're pointing at them the police are down there running around on the ground we're like hey man there's guy on the roof with a rifle and the police were like huh what you know like like they didn't know what was going on you know we're like hey right here on the roof we can see him from right here we
see him you know he's he's crawl and next thing you know I'm like I'm thinking to myself I'm like why is Trump still speaking why have they not pulled him off the stage I'm standing there pointing at him for you know two three minutes Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn I'm pointing at that roof just standing there like this and next thing you know five shots ring out so you're you're certain that the shots came from that guy on the roof 100% 100% And he he was up there for
a couple of minutes you saw him up there for a couple of minutes absolutely at least 3 to four minutes and you were telling police in the secret we were telling the police we were pointing at them for the Secret Service who were looking at us from the top of the barn they were looking at us the whole time and we were standing by that tree could they see binoculars could they see him probably not because the roof the way the the slope went he was behind where they could see but but why is there
not Secret Service on all of these roofs here I mean this is not a big place what do you make of that Chris as a as a counterterror expert the kind of things that man was describing what do you make of it well it's interesting actually because the US are renowned for having lots of different sheriffs if you like and and and no one really communicating very well at incidents I don't know whether that's an issue here but um you know different Radio Systems who's talking to who Etc you know we we'll find out in
the fullness of time what I would say I've seen another video where the the counter snipers are actually looking at the uh at the guy with a gun uh and actually react after he's he's carried out the shots so I think they were put that you know the counter sniper team were probably actually aware of this guy but were a little bit frightened to to take the shot orbe it they didn't need to take the shot they should have just ensured that Trump was moved off the stage and that would have taken away the the
issue so that's what should have happened as soon as they knew there was some sort of threat he should have been taken off the stage that's what that's what you would have done if you've been in charge of this operation well yeah and I think any uh security detail would do that I I I just you know it is a big call and and someone like Trump is a difficult man you know you're making a decision which you know could you know I imagine in the US could get yourself fired so but but as a
security detail you take the principal away from the threat if you can't deal with the threat immediately uh other than that they've got to shoot the uh the the sniper before he gets a shot off and uh they clearly didn't do that in that video and you'll see it on the internet if you if you look for the yeah they reacted too late um what sort of inquiries will happen now Chris what how will they go through this in detail what kind of information and techniques will they use to try to work out actually what
should have happened versus what did happen well I think they'll know very well what should have happened it's it's the fact that didn't didn't someone make the decision to to pull him off the stage I think that's the that's the key you know you've got seconds to react um you know clearly they're doing this thing you know these things on a daily basis his security detail and every time he goes to a different state they'll be a different sniper team on the on the roof I imagine so it is difficult for them you know they're
traveling around the country but you know when the when the decision has to be taken you know you need clear mind and quick thinking and and quick actions and that was just too slow yesterday Chris thank you very much Chris Phillips there who is a former DCI
