Secret Service must follow ‘use-of-force model’: Ex-agent
- Secret Service agent on Naomi Biden's detail fired weapon Sunday
- Agency says suspects were seen breaking into SUV
- Nobody was struck by the gunfire
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(NewsNation) — Secret Service agents protecting President Joe Biden’s granddaughter opened fire this weekend after three people tried to break into an unmarked Secret Service vehicle.
What would have prompted an agent to discharge their gun?
Evy Poumpouras, a former Secret Service agent, explained Monday on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that an agent typically needs to determine an imminent threat to themselves or others before firing.
“There’s a use-of-force model that Secret Service is taught, and it’s similar to what other law enforcement entities are taught,” Poumpouras said. “They’re probably gonna sit down with this agent and ask him or her, ‘What caused you to escalate to this level?'”
The agents, assigned to protect Naomi Biden, were out with her in the Georgetown neighborhood late Sunday night when they saw the three people breaking a window of the parked and unoccupied SUV, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.
One of the agents opened fire, but no one was struck by the gunfire, the Secret Service said in a statement. The three people were seen fleeing in a red car, and the Secret Service said it put out a regional bulletin to Metropolitan Police to be on the lookout for it.
“Typically, you do not discharge a weapon unless there’s imminent danger or harm to yourself or to someone else, so that agent’s going to have to articulate why they discharged, and they’re going to have to say either there was a threat towards me, a threat toward somebody else or I thought I saw a weapon,” Poumpouras said. “If there was no weapon on scene and the agent discharged, that’s going to be an issue and a problem. They’re going to look at that.”
The incident came amid a spike in crime in the D.C. metropolitan area, a reason why another former Secret Service agent says agents need to be on high alert.
“I think it’s just where we are. The more those numbers go up, exponentially, the more and more people are going to be involved,” Robert McDonald said of the number of auto thefts and carjackings in the nation’s capital.
The Associated Press and NewsNation digital reporter Zaid Jilani contributed to this report.
