This month marks the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Secret Service -- an agency that began with the task of catching counterfeiters during the Civil War and now is responsible for the safety of world leaders – but the last couple of years have been tough, with a prostitution scandal and security breaches at the White House bring the agency under intense scrutiny.
New Director Joseph Clancy has promised reform, and recently News4 got a firsthand look at how the agency trains for things like an ambush of the president’s motorcade to those fence jumpers at the White House. Whether it’s making a U-turn at 80 mph or preparing for a sniper attack on the president’s motorcade every member of the Secret Service starts at a training facility outside Washington.
“This is where it all starts,” Clancy said. “Seven months of training that our agents and officers go through.”
It’s a tough seven months designed to put the future agents and officers under intense pressure. Not every recruit makes it.
One part of the training where the pressure is really ramped up is the driving course. The agents chosen to drive the president and vice president must know how to handle “the beast,” as the president’s limo is known, under any conditions.
Over the years, the way presidents have gotten around has changed dramatically. Several presidential limos are still housed on display at the training facility, including President Ronald Reagan’s convertible and the Cadillacs of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
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None compares to the one President Barack Obama rides in, but ask agents about the limo’s capabilities and they get a bit tight-lipped -- for security reasons.
“There’s only so much we can talk about with those vehicles,” said Randy Leggans, of the Secret Service.
The two branches of the Secret Service most people are familiar with are the uniformed officers and the agents. Their look has changed over the years as well.
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So has what they do.
President Abraham Lincoln formed the agency to put an end to counterfeiters.
“We went from paper, the counterfeit investigations, to plastic credit card investigations to now the digital world and, the cyber world,” Clancy said.
Regardless of whether they’re assigned to protect the president or catch cyber criminals, they all go through basic weapons training.
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They also train for worst case scenarios, like the ambush of a motorcade, and they train for more common incidents, like fence jumpers at the White House.
The mere sight of the dogs is usually enough to get someone to stop in their tracks, agents say, but if they don’t, the dogs are trained to take an intruder down.
“Most folks that are bitten by a dog have pain compliance,” Canine Training Center Program Manager Bill Glady said. “The dog is not deployed to bite or tear or rip. It’s simply to take control of the suspect and take that suspect to the ground.”
The Secret Service can recreate countless training scenarios at the facility, which includes a fake Air Force One and Marine One, as well as a mock city and hotel. Clancy has asked Congress for $8 million to build a mock-up of the White House.
“When you look at Special Forces, they typically get a model of where they’re going to attack or go in on a mission,” Clancy said. “What more important facility is there than the White House?”
Clancy will have to wait to see if he’ll get to build a replica White House. In the meantime, members of the Secret Service will continue to train for the unthinkable.
“We have to continue to evolve and change with the emerging threats, but we’re committed to that,” Clancy said.
Clancy knows the next two years are going to be especially busy for the Secret Service, with possibly 20 or more presidential candidates to protect during the race for the White House and then a presidential inauguration.
