(Headline USA) Leftist Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, suggested on Monday that Secret Service agents were slow to deem Thomas Crooks a threat on the day he shot at former President Donald Trump because of their “racial bias.”
Crockett made the comment during a House Oversight Hearing with then-Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned on Tuesday after being grilled by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
“I wanna talk about training and I want to talk about the fact that there’s been a little bit of dancing around as it relates to this being a suspicious person and this being a situation that was perceived to be a threat,” Crockett told Cheatle. “One of my questions has to do with if you have any bias training that your officers undergo.”
Crockett went on to explain that law enforcement usually does not perceive “a young white male” as a threat, “even if they are carrying a long gun.”
Yet they often see a “perceived threat just by somebody having a little bit more melanin in their skin,” Crockett continued.
“When … we are looking at a tragedy in which law enforcement made an error, [we look at] the bias training and whether or not our officers are getting it,” Crockett said. “So I’m curious to know, in some of the training that you talk about that is part of your budget, has bias training been part of that?”
Cheatle confirmed that Secret Service agents do undergo racial bias training, which was likely no surprise to lawmakers given Cheatle’s efforts to ramp up diversity, equity, and inclusion policies throughout the agency.
Cheatle refused to answer many of lawmakers’ questions about the attempted assassination of Trump. She has come under fire for the Secret Service’s slow response to Crooks, who reportedly had been identified as a suspicious figure hours before Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania began.
Crooks was able to fire multiple shots at Trump and the rally crowd from an unmanned building before being shot by a Secret Service sniper.
