Former Orland Park police chief and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy
Courtesy of Orland Park
The Secret Service agent shot during the attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan in 1981 said he is disappointed that 43 years later, a would-be assassin has struck again.
Former Orland Park police Chief Tim McCarthy said he expects a “deep dive” investigation into the handling of former President Donald Trump’s security Saturday, when he was shot and another person killed during a rally in Pennsylvania.
“I expect it to be no holds barred,” said McCarthy, who retired from the south suburb’s police department in 2020 and now is president of a security firm. “If the protectee is injured, it’s a failure. So you have to look and find out why.”
McCarthy was shot in the abdomen on March 30, 1981, when John Hinckley Jr. attempted to kill Reagan outside a Washington, D.C. hotel.
He recalls it starting like “pretty much a normal day in Washington, D.C.,” as they prepared for Reagan’s speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton. Everything was covered, including motorcade routes, where agents would be posted and the formation around the president.
When gunfire erupted as Reagan walked out of the hotel, McCarthy said, “I hate to say it, but I probably thought or said, ‘Oh, (expletive.)’”
“At that point, it’s all training and it’s all reaction to your training,” he said. “What I did had nothing to do with bravery whatsoever. It had to do with training and reacting to the training that I had when the crisis took place.”
McCarthy said the agents assigned to the former president Saturday appeared to react properly and quickly.
“And when they heard over the radio the shooter was down, they remained covering the president and then evacuated him to the armored car for medical treatment and evacuation,” he said.
Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy, foreground, Washington police officer Thomas K. Delehanty, center, and presidential press secretary James Brady, background, lie wounded on a street outside a Washington hotel after shots were fired at U.S. President Ronald Reagan in March 1981.
The Associated Press, 1981
But he said there are questions as to how the suspected shooter was able to climb atop a roof to get a clear shot at Trump.
“It doesn’t take a security expert to ask the question why wasn’t that building better covered. And there will be an investigation to determine that,” he said.
McCarthy, who also served in the Secret Service under presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, left the agency in 1993 and became Orland Park’s police chief a year later.
He said Saturday’s events are disappointing, but “not surprising.”
“We know that violence against politicians is never going to go away, as much as we’d like it to, that these things can happen and then sadly did happen again. You don’t want to see this type of thing in our political discourse,” he said.
“The only way the president should leave office is at the ballot box or impeachment,” McCarthy added. “He shouldn’t leave office as a result of a bullet from a madman.”
Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy, Washington police officer Thomas K. Delehanty and White House press secretary James Brady lie wounded on a street outside a Washington hotel after shots were fired at President Reagan.
The Associated Press, 1981