HENDERSON HARBOR — Michael J. Carbone knows what it’s like to be assigned to an elite group of U.S. Secret Service agents tasked with protecting an American president at the closest of quarters.

Carbone, a Watertown native and 1975 graduate of Immaculate Heart Central, spent 27 years as a Secret Service agent, including about a dozen years working on details to protect Presidents Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. For three of those years, he was also assigned to the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team to guard President Clinton.

The service’s Counter Assault Team, or CAT, was at the center of the July 13 assassination attempt of former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The CAT was the group that immediately surrounded Trump, now the Republican candidate for the presidency, after his ear was grazed by a bullet fired by a sniper from about 130 yards away. After Trump got to his feet, pumping his fist, the CAT team quickly escorted him to a waiting vehicle.

Amidst the chaos, Carbone says the CAT performed its duties as well as could be expected, although he would have expected members to have unholstered their weapons as they led the former president away to counter any additional shooters that may have been in the crowd.

“I thought the agents on the stage did an excellent job,” he said. “They did a great job of covering and evacuating.”

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Agency scrutiny

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Carbone understands the public’s frustration with events that preceded the shooting, which has prompted scrutiny of the Secret Service for apparently allowing a 20-year-old man to climb atop a nearby roof and use that spot to fire multiple shots, despite reports that people in the crowd had tried to point the shooter out to law enforcement.

“Unequivocally, that sniper should have never gotten to that location,” Carbone said.

He said that in the days or day leading up to an event involving a high-profile Secret Service protectee, agents conduct a walkthrough to identify potential dangers, such as an elevated spot, like a rooftop. He said “high ground is always an advantage” for a shooter.

“That rooftop should have been posted,” he said. “That was a prime post that should have been posted by law enforcement. You can call it a weak spot or what have you.”

Carbone said he believes something that may have played a role in the security failure is “complacency, complacency, complacency.” There had not, after all, been an armed assassination attempt on a president since March 30, 1981, when John Hinckley Jr. shot President Reagan outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. Reagan was seriously wounded, but recovered and was released from the hospital about two weeks later.

“Sometimes, things become repetitious,” Carbone said. “You go to another site; the last time we did it this way, it worked, so therefore you’ll implement pretty much the same advance structure. You get a little bit comfortable, and you think nothing’s going to happen, and sure enough …”

He said fatigue can also factor into complacency. While agents typically work eight-hour shifts, that doesn’t factor in boarding planes and flying to the next detail and then trying to get some sleep in a hotel before joining the next detail. During a busy campaign season, that can leave little time for the training needed to keep skills as sharp as possible.

“You kind of get out of sync,” he said.

Carbone said the Secret Service also relies on local law enforcement to provide additional support, often working one of four perimeters that surround each protection detail.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of support from the local law enforcement entities,” he said.

However, he concedes that local law enforcement entities, like their state and federal counterparts, are often limited by manpower issues. While there has been much Monday morning quarterbacking reported about which agencies were responsible for security lapses in Butler, Carbone said that ultimately it is the Secret Service’s responsibility.

“The Secret Service, to point their finger at other law enforcement entities in the blame, I don’t think that’s really the accurate way to say things. We take full responsibility for all advances,” he said.

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Detail preparation

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The main strength the Secret Service brings to the scene is the intense training it does to protect high-profile people. Carbone said the CAT, for example, trains with the likes of Delta Force and the Navy SEALs and members have to be selected for the team. He served as the national fitness coordinator for CAT for three years at the Secret Service’s academy in Maryland.

“It’s very rigorous training. You have to go through a rigorous fitness test and have excellent marksmanship,” he said. “Physical fitness and the handling of weapons, they interact. They go hand-in-hand.”

If there was a hole in law enforcement’s performance on July 13, Carbone said it was that they left their guns in their holsters as they rushed Trump from the stage. At that point, Trump was still exposed to potential harm.

“The shooter was an amateur. In a situation like that, you have be very careful of diversions, meaning multiple other attackers to draw away attention after (the initial shooter) gets exposed,” he said.

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Concern for agents

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While Carbone said “this assassination attempt should have been 100% avoided,” having been an agent provides insight into how the agents on the ground might feel after a protectee is wounded. He recalls meeting on several occasions an agent who was on the detail when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and said the event affected the agent for years after.

“You never want anything to happen on your watch,” he said. “You take full responsibility for anything that happens on your shift.”

For Carbone, retired since 2011 and living in Henderson Harbor, the key to being a successful agent is “to never let your guard down.”

“Being on the Secret Service was a passion of mine, being a special agent.” he said. “It is the utmost honor and privilege to be assigned to the presidential detail and the vice presidential detail.”

One perk to the job?

“One of the benefits — I say benefits; it was an honor — was to fly on Air Force One,” he said. “I tell people it’s the best way to travel.”