• If he didn’t have some sort of special security detail, that fact is in and of itself an indication.

    That is not always the case, see Olof Palme. But i think that one murder changed much in the topic. For example, in Poland, Jarosław Kaczyński, despite not holding any office any more, do get state bodyguards because they aren’t even pretending he’s not the real head of state with president and PM being just his puppets.