Security at White House Correspondents' Dinner Under Scrutiny After Gunman Incident

You've been listening to an update from law enforcement tonight. Uh a night that began at the White House Correspondent Center and ended with this uh potential act of political violence. A gunman, 31 years old, running with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives toward a room full of journalists and the president of the United States along with cabinet members as well. Uh we have charges. We just heard from the uh US attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro. Assault on a federal officer, one count. uh and one count of uh was it a firearms charge, Matt? It was intent to commit violence with a weapon. Now, those are preliminary charges to hold them tonight as this investigation continues. Uh they will almost certainly

uh be upgraded uh from there. Uh I'm also here um uh what stood out to you? Well, I think what stands out to me is the fact that this took place at um at the Washington Hilton, which for people who don't know, uh the White House Correspondent Center has taken place at that location for decades. It's right in the middle of DC. It's also colloquially known as the Hinckley Hilton because 45 years ago, there was an attempted assassination outside of the hotel after an event uh by John Hinckley shooting at Ronald Reagan, the president at the time. And the reason that the dinner takes place there and has for decades is very simple. It is a very large hotel with a very large ballroom. Everyone's seen the pictures

by now. There are thousands of people in that room. It's one of the few hotels in the city that can accommodate that many people. And as a result, it is not really logistically feasible, or at least it hasn't been up until this point, to put the mags outside of the hotel and have people go through the mags as they come into the hotel because you've got lots of guests staying at that hotel um who walk in and out as well. And so the mags were set up right outside the ballroom itself, which is what apparently enabled this individual to get so close to the ballroom that people who were sitting in the back actually heard the gunshots. And I want to point out something else, Tony, which

is that I was surrounded by a bunch of people who had already been through the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, the attempted assassination there, and they were sort of plunged right back into that moment. And I'm not just talking about journalists, but officials as well, who as we were uh cowering under the tables, you could tell that they were experiencing some form of PTSD because that in and of itself was a traumatic event that they were now revisiting. Yeah, it's a remarkable situation here. We heard the president in an earlier press conference uh talk about events like this being something that comes with the territory and we have a list we can just make on the back of an envelope of the number of major

political figures and major figures in public life who have faced incidents like this. It's a remarkable fact I imagine now we can now about our country at this moment in time that this does come with the territory. Go ahead. We have become accustomed at this point to political violence happening with shocking frequency. Um, and I think one of the things that we have seen is that this happens time and again. However, and I think we just heard this in the press conference, what the USS uh, Secret Service uh, Chief Sean Curran described as the multi-layer protection worked. We don't know that President Trump was the target this time, but there were many layers of

protection. And as we saw that alleged assassin, that suspect did not manage to penetrate even the room. So whatever was there, police, Secret Service, DHS, the system appeared to have been able to catch this asalent before he made it into the room. And on that point, it's a success. But it's interesting, the president has had a few different messages on the subject of security. on the one hand thanking the law enforcement for the protective action they took but on the other hand saying the room wasn't particularly secure on the other hand saying this is why we need the ballroom so on this question of security the preliminary and the proactive let's go to CBS News security contributor Sam Vinegrad who's also with us at another location in the DC bureau

uh Sam if you can hear me take it away certainly Tony and when these law enforcement officials reference a multi-layered security posture what that means is there are various stages of physical security to try to prevent an individual from the first instance getting into the facility and then getting closer to the protectees. And that's why the magnetometers were the last line of defense, if you will, before the ballroom. But the security planning for this event starts weeks prior to it actually happening. The US Secret Service is in the lead for the security planning for this event and does weekly countdown meetings, daily calls with all the various law enforcement agencies that are involved as well as a private security that's there protecting other individuals

present on the site. There are physical security preparations made as well as a very broad and deep sweep of intelligence information. I will note if this individual was in fact a lone gunman who was not known to law enforcement, it is more than likely that intelligence just wouldn't have done the trick. And what that brings us to, Tony, is real questions about the screening of individuals that were allowed into the hotel uh and whether and what the coordination was like between the hotel and the law enforcement officials present on site. The last thing I'll say is that right now law enforcement officials at all levels of government are conducting digital forensic and visual analysis to try to ascertain this individual's profile as well as his

travel patterns. And that will take some time likely before we get further information on motive, travel patterns, how long this was planned, and if there were any red flags along the way. All right, Sam Vinegrad.