In the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, safety experts and public figures are taking a closer look at balancing safety and accessibility.
WTOP spoke with former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger about the issue.
Manger said he’d advise politicians — whether members of Congress, mayors or school board members — to have security assessments if there are any concerns about a given venue.
“Typically, their local police department will have a security expert, a lot of times it is the SWAT team,” he said.
Manger said whether an event is outdoors or at an arena or auditorium, increasing security comes at a price.
“It is staffing intensive, it is resource intensive. You’ve got to have enough people, you’ve got to have the right equipment, folks have to have the right training, and all of that costs money,” he said.
Securing indoor facilities is also labor intensive, Manger noted, saying it’s not just a matter of having attendees walk through metal detectors.
“What happened an hour before the event started? Who was in there, and what were they doing?” he asked.
Manger explained that someone could have placed something in a venue that could present a threat and that’s why security sweeps are often performed ahead of an event.
Touching on the Kirk probe, Manger said the investigation into the suspect’s motives were still in the early stages, adding that toughening gun laws — when mental health issues are a concern — was unlikely to prevent similar acts in the future.
“I will tell you that I have seen shooting incidents throughout my career, and I think back to Newtown, Connecticut,” he said, referring to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. “That was not enough of a catalyst to make any changes to our gun laws.”
Manger added that he doesn’t know what could result in “meaningful” changes to “keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them.”
As concern about young people turning to political violence rises, Manger said, “I would say 99% of all parents don’t do a very good job of monitoring what their kids are looking at online. We think we do, but most kids can be in their own room with their own device.”
And parents can’t be certain what they’re looking at and what they’re starting to pay attention to, he said.
However, Manger said that doesn’t mean parents should give up on monitoring their children’s social media and news diet.
“What you can pay attention to is what your child says and what your child does,” he said. “That’s every parents’ responsibility because, oftentimes, they’re the only ones that would see those changes.”
There’s also the question of a larger civic responsibility. “Who’s going to step up?” he said.
Currently, according to Manger, there’s a lot of hesitation to step forward.
“These people come out of nowhere,” he said, citing the suspect in Kirk’s shooting death.
Manger does not put the blame just on social media, but also on the overheated political discourse — on both sides of the political aisle — that suggests things are so bad, and that the opposing side is to blame.
“What they have in common is they are extremists. They have been radicalized and they believe that political violence is justified,” he said.
Manger noted there’s been a sudden spike in swatting, the practice of filing false reports about threats on college campuses and other public spaces. On Thursday alone, there were reported threats to Maryland’s House speaker and Senate president, and the report of an active shooter at the U.S. Naval Academy that ended with a Midshipman being shot and wounded.
He said in his own experience as U.S. Capitol Police chief, similar threats that targeted members of Congress were often based overseas.
“We weren’t able to pinpoint who made the call and who originated the threat, but we were able to determine that it came from overseas,” he said. “So this wasn’t just some neighborhood kid trying to get out of taking a test.”
Referring to the current political climate, Manger said, “I don’t remember politics being like this.”
“How we combat this? God, I wish I had the answer,” he said.
But Manger said the country needs to reject political violence as a possible solution to any issue.
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