Not that I’m suggesting that there was anything sinister in this story, but WTF? You have Barack Obama, a popular black candidate for President whose security detail has had to be buffed up due to increased threats on his life. So why in the hell would that same Secret Service security detail suddenly order Dallas police to stop screening people entering an Obama rally for weapons?
DALLAS — Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on. […]
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
“How can you not be concerned in this day and age,” said one policeman.
I’m sorry, but that excuse for possibly allowing someone with a gun into an auditorium filled with people strikes me as a scenario out of a paranoid Hollywood conspiracy movie from the seventies. It just don’t pass the smell test, ya know what I mean? You don’t add Secret Service protection early to Obama’s security because of threats to his life only to have them act like it’s more important to speed the flow of people in to see him because they “seemed like a friendly crowd” rather than take the necessary steps to keep him and everyone else in that building safe.
This needs to be investigated and whoever gave that order dismissed. Or this generation will experience the same trauma that mine did: the assassination of a charismatic, popular political leader.
