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The two Secret Service agents assigned to protect the Obama family at their residence in Washington, D.C., engaged in a scuffle, and the scandal has quite unexpectedly made everyone speak out in vehement condemnation, raising deep questions about discipline in the elite Service. The incident occurred at a shift change in a plush Kalorama property Obama maintains as a residence.
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From the eyewitness videos, it appeared two females first quarreled, the quarrel getting out of control due to one agent gratuitously dragging the other one down by the hair. The altercation is said to have originated with one of the agents showing up late for her assigned shift, although such details remain unoriginally confirmed by official sources. The fight lasted approximately ninety seconds before other officials came in.
The Secret Service issued a brief statement that acknowledged “an altercation between two employees” and that “appropriate personnel actions are being taken.” Yet they refused to divulge whether the parties involved had been suspended or terminated. This marks the third time physical fighting amongst Secret Service officers has hit the headlines in five years.
There has been largely negative online opinion over the footage shown, doubting the fitness of the agents for duty. One user wrote, “They fight like middle school girls Not trained Secret Service agents,” while another sarcastically offered, “Looks like the Secret Service’s new mission is ‘Protect and Serve… Drama.’” At least two continued by taking potshots at the gender of the combatants, with one commenting, “Never hire a woman to do a man’s job,” though such remarks were met with strong criticism from others.
Mind you, the timing couldn’t be worse when Congress was reviewing the Secret Service’s $3.7 billion budget request for FY 2025. The brawl immediately spread to a wider debate on agency management, with one keenly observing, “Taxpayers fund their $55 million Joint Autonomy Office while agents brawl over shift changes? Priorities.”
And this certainly wasn’t the latest in controversies for Obama’s protective detail, as in 2021, two agents were reassigned after a fight turned violent outside the same residence in the wee hours of the morning. The past few years have been downs and ups for the entire agency, marked with several lapses in protection, including the 2014 fiasco with an armed intruder getting past the White House fence to a considerable measure inside the executive mansion.
Morale has decreased sharply ever since the scandal broke in 2015 about members hiring prostitutes in Colombia ahead of a presidential visit. Kimberly Cheatle, who’s the current head appointed in 2022, swore to change the agency culture, but after events such as the one just referenced, one is inclined to say she’s got her work cut out for her.
Curiously, many commentators have wondered whether former presidents really require lifelong Secret Service protection, with one asking, “Why do previous presidents still need Secret Service? Seems unnecessary.” It is from an act passed in 1965 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, though there have been some calls to revisit the policy on the ground of exorbitant costs.
While investigation by the Secret Service is underway regarding the latest incident, the footage stands as a humbling reminder of the human elements that can bring down even the highest level of protective services. There is a record-high amount of security threats against public figures; the agency surely cannot affix attention away from this, and this was well noted by observers who remarked, “We truly are doomed if this is the caliber of presidential protection.”
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There is no comment from the Obama family yet; however, sources close to the former President claim he was not home at the time. Neighbors thought it was loud shouting but assumed it was the usual sort of security orchestration until that vile fight broke out and became visible from the street.
This story originally appeared on Celebrityinsider
