Maybe this is poorly described and the shooter literally turned and shot as the cop ducked back down the ladder… but that cop should’ve been on radio or firing his sidearm into the dirt or SOMETHING immediately after going back down a step or two. But this reads like he just went back down and wandered off.
They could head off a lot of questions by saying he went down a step and radioed immediately so people think the cop at least tried lol
The cop had already lost, the shooter had the high ground!
Seriously though, he was on a ladder - all of your limbs are dedicated to keeping you on the ladder. You have to get off the ladder before you can do anything else, so you either go up the ladder probably getting shot multiple times before you can get to your gun or radio, or go down the ladder where you’re not in the line of fire to call for backup, draw your gun, or whatever.
Not really, I’m on a ladder for hours a day frequently, like multiple times a month. You are only required 3 points of contact for OSHA compliance and pretty sure cops can ignore that. If you can’t grab the radio attached to your chest with one hand while on a ladder with three other contacts then you have no business being a cop lol
I agree with the poor wording, “retreat” makes it sound he ran away.
Another issue is the Secret Service were probably on their own radio channels and not with the local police. When there’s interagency things like this, there’s usually a command center where they have the leaders of each group staged so they can relay things between the teams, but not direct communication between Deputy Bobby who sees the gunman and Agent Spike on the stage. Plenty of time to get off shots before the warning is heard by the people who need to hear it.
Maybe this is poorly described and the shooter literally turned and shot as the cop ducked back down the ladder… but that cop should’ve been on radio or firing his sidearm into the dirt or SOMETHING immediately after going back down a step or two. But this reads like he just went back down and wandered off.
They could head off a lot of questions by saying he went down a step and radioed immediately so people think the cop at least tried lol
The cop had already lost, the shooter had the high ground!
Seriously though, he was on a ladder - all of your limbs are dedicated to keeping you on the ladder. You have to get off the ladder before you can do anything else, so you either go up the ladder probably getting shot multiple times before you can get to your gun or radio, or go down the ladder where you’re not in the line of fire to call for backup, draw your gun, or whatever.
Not really, I’m on a ladder for hours a day frequently, like multiple times a month. You are only required 3 points of contact for OSHA compliance and pretty sure cops can ignore that. If you can’t grab the radio attached to your chest with one hand while on a ladder with three other contacts then you have no business being a cop lol
I agree that you can get one hand free while on a ladder, but I’m still going to duck first if someone is pointing a gun at me
Fully agreed, I’m just saying a cop who passed the annual fitness exam should be able to duck down a step and radio an alert pretty damn quick.
I’m still betting $10 that the shooter turned and threw lead without really aiming since he knew he was compromised.
I just think the journalists are wording this extremely poorly
I agree with the poor wording, “retreat” makes it sound he ran away.
Another issue is the Secret Service were probably on their own radio channels and not with the local police. When there’s interagency things like this, there’s usually a command center where they have the leaders of each group staged so they can relay things between the teams, but not direct communication between Deputy Bobby who sees the gunman and Agent Spike on the stage. Plenty of time to get off shots before the warning is heard by the people who need to hear it.
That would be super dumb. There should be some operator that relevant info is passed to either channel.
Ha OSHA
If you work on a ladder, you’ve survived with one and told nobody.
Oh yeah, one foot on ladder, other foot on top of something tall (if anything), hands on whatever you’re working on partially holding you up