6:54 p.m. September 11, 2001: Secret Service Emergency Response Team Told to Pull Back When President’s Helicopter Lands at the White House

Members of the Secret Service emergency response team (ERT) are ordered to pull back out of camera range when President Bush’s helicopter arrives at the White House, which means they are too far from the president to respond effectively should something bad happen. ERT officers are waiting on the South Lawn of the White House when Marine One, the president’s helicopter, lands there with Bush on board (see (6:54 p.m.) September 11, 2001). However, senior Secret Service officials who are also present order them to “pull back so that the television cameras would not capture images of the heavily armed sharpshooters and alarm the public,” according to US News and World Report. Several ERT officers will later report that they are therefore “too far away from the president when he stepped out of Marine One to be effective if something had happened.” ERT members are the Secret Service’s “sharpshooters assigned to respond to any terrorist strike,” according to US News and World Report. [US News and World Report, 12/1/2002; Melanson, 2005, pp. 331] They are “[d]edicated to protecting the president and securing the White House grounds,” according to the Daily Mail, and are “skilled, unobtrusive, and absolutely lethal when called upon.” [Daily Mail, 12/16/2010]