All right, we'd like to welcome our special guests today, Kent Robie. Kent is head of Emergency Management Services for the Bedford County. Welcome to the program, Kent. Thank you, Brian. I'm excited about having you own, not for the reasons of it for but I I just you were the first person I thought of. I was coming back from the beach and I was like, oh man, I need to talk to Ken about this, because everybody's got all these questions and I'm like, you know what, I don't want to hear Jesse Waters tell me about you know something I want to I want to hear from people that know. So I'm so excited that you're here. Let's dabble into it a little bit. Your background. You have worked on from different aspects where where they're details with secret Service, right right, give me a little bit of background of what you've done in the past, and then we'll dive into some questions. Well, it's to start. It was, you know, two thousand and one on June two thousand and one. Yes, when we did, I was a lieutenant then with the Sheriff's Office, and I was in charge of all field operations and tactical stuff and planning special events. So I was put in charge of President Bush's visit to D Day, and our work began. You know, they're still building D Day back then, and our work began probably eight months out. And that's where I developed a friendship. And I won't mention his name because he's still in the mix with a secret server, sure, but him and I became very close friends for eight months in and out. Every time something changed up there, we were up there and we're mainly concerned about, you know, the placement. I had one hundred and twenty five law enforcement assigned to me, from the state police to the sheriff's office, town police. Actually back then, the Game Commission we're a great help and they still are today. But we used every tool and a tool box that we could. And like I said, I started with the Rack and Roanoke and we started pre planning until the until the advanced team gets there two or three weeks before the visit. Developed some friendships on that as well, so I basically had to draw up the plan for all the locals. And what disturbed me the most when I got that call from my buddy in d C, who is a Secret Service agent. He was on cat. He had been on Trump's detail during while he was president. Uh. He said, hey, man, you're watching the news. I was no, uh, and it turned it on. I was like within two minutes, I was. I told him on that phone, I said, why did not Why didn't he cover that high ground? That was a big deal here in Bedford. And I'll say that because they had They had me put an officer at the fire tower over there on the reservoir. Yeah you know how oh yeah, yeah, because I had taken agents up there the rack and myself had went up there as well, and you could actually you could have taken a shot to the overlord if you were that good. So they made me that was the furthest out high ground that we had to put And we literally went around that whole place, and even if it was a question if it was high ground, we put an officer there. There wasn't none of this, well let's stick them in the building. No, we put them higher as high as we could so, and I can remember there was some construction trailers there. We even put them on there. So for our audience, a lot of these people may not know. So what's great about your position with Bedford County with emergency management services. A lot of people always ask questions, well, there was a miscommunication here or the miscommunication there. That's what I like about Bedford County being sort of proactive, because all localities don't have this right. No, I was, I was very just both of my buddy and I were just dumbfounded that you have all these briefings and you're told exactly what to do, and I don't. I still don't understand. It's still an investigation. I got it because I've heard about the ladder, I've heard about climbing on the air condition. I've heard about the tack teams. The tack team assigned to that building was inside the building. I find that hard to believe. I'm not I'm not saying it didn't happen, and I'm not saying because we did. Uh. We did have some personnel in the construction trailers, but there was they were due to respond to the crowd. Uh. And it was just outside of where everybody sets it D day. But we still had people on high ground. Sure. And another thing that the agent told me was they had they they had cut his staff. I don't care about the Iranian. He didn't have the protection that he had early on. And I know during President Bush's visit, we had three counters sniper teams and they were placed in the in the very best positions that I uncover the motor k coming up the hill, but to cover anything within the crowd, and then the state police tag team and my tag team covered everything else. And we knew our field of fire, so to say, we were responsible for certain areas. So with that said, I think it was only two sniper teams that I that I've heard of that was on site. That's not enough for a crowd that big, exactly. And I realized that was a rural type environment. But man, come on, you only had a couple of buildings and this slope. Excuse get into that. But so I want to understand, So you have for Bedford County. You're the point man when all these different agencies are together, right, you have to make sure that they're all talking the same language. Is that I'm in, I'm in on these briefings. It it might be that like like this past d Day, give an example with Gore. Yeah, so, and even with Pence, that is the town's jurisdiction. Okay, and that's the way it should be back back in the day. Uh, no one would take wanted that responsibility of planning that. So I stepped up and said, I'll take it. We'll do it, knowing that I still had to work with the chief and it's his jurisdiction, and I still gave him opportunity to put his men where he wanted to put them. This last d Day or Shannon Walker, we both worked together and it's it was his deal. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. He'd already done the Pence visit. We looked at it. He were preparing for a secret service event. Thank god it didn't happen, because it's just it's a strain. It's it's a lot of work and it's a lot of empire that goes into it, and you have have to do it their way. Sure they have the call. It's not like, you know, the sheriff can go, well, you know, I'm gonna put my guys on over here. Everything on my plan when Bush was here had to be approved not only by the racking RONO, but the Advanced Team supervisor. Now, what's the racking RONO just for regionally it's a regional it's like it's a smaller Secret Service office. Okay, they only have like three or four guys, and they might have more today, but back then it was only three, I think, and they just they worked their cases and normally it's counterfeit and then they assist the locals. And you know, so in Pennsylvania you have you have they know this visit's happening, right, and so you had local law enforcement and now you have Secret Service. But everything is Secret Service the point on this absolutely, it's their plan. It's their absolutely, So that's where the failures happened. So because I've heard Secret Service blame local and I'm all right, somebody has to be at the top. The thing is the Secret Service might have told the locals to be that that's your building, right, and just like my visit, they can't cover everything. So I supplemented what they needed to cover, and I didn't deviate off that plan if they told me I needed. And at the time, I had thirteen dog teams because it was very heavily wooded up there, and I had showed them where I'm putting these dogs and they were out of sight, but they were they were in the way that they could protect that that layer of protection. We had layers of protection. You had to get through this to get to that, to get to this, and there's a point you shouldn't have got to if you had all these layers. But ultimately, you can't go off from left field sheriff or chief and say, you know what's hot, you guys, just stay in here right now. I just it's hard to comprehend why at least somebody wouldn't perched on top of that building, or they didn't have a sniper team covering that building and watching it. All right, So for your years many years of service that you had in DC. Is the incompetency at the top level? And I don't even know her name, the director, but just just in the interviews that I've seen twice, I can't it is it? Is it DEI? What is driving the incompetency at that level? You've got to have the I think we all can agree the people that are protecting the president are phenomenal people, absolutely, but somewhere something got something is going wrong for this to be able to happen like this. I would just tell you what I was told. This is not necessarily my belief, but it is happening, and I watched it happen in the agency I just came from. When a director or assistant director walks in and says, I want thirty thirty percent of my force being females. Yes, and this is not She said it. She absolutely said it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's discriminate to every race of gender. Worked hard there, yes, And it's like the agent told me. I didn't even know that until he told me, and I got to dig and she did say it, and I told he told me. He was like, look, I said, so, we had the problem in my old agency of doing the same thing. But once we got certain females on the range, they couldn't shoot, Yes, they couldn't do certain things. And I'll kind of quote I'll quote him and saying this is not You can't put the JV team up there for this exactly exactly. I mean, President bushitd'd got to be or C team. And I'm not saying he did, But what I'm saying is you can't make statements like that and drop the standards. We didn't be honest with you. We didn't. We we put those females through extra training and we got them there. Yeah, but we didn't. We didn't push them through, to push them through just because of their gender or color of their skin's that's right, and so to me, that's what has hampered you know, the protectees getting Are they getting the eighteen? Yeah? And I'm not saying a certain president should be eighteen, another one should be They all should be eighteen. That's right. Yeah, it's it's the point and the goal of the task, right. I mean, yes, it's because if it fails, the worst scenario could happen. I think that's the thing. We say it all the time. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. And it is a credit to just how phenomenal these agencies are because they get it right ninety nine point nine percent of the time. Right. But when this happened the other night, it was so such gross negligence at the point where even I, who is you know, nowhere near the know that you're in something is wrong. It's all wrong. I mean, I mean I keep seeing videos of them trying to bust through a fence and I'm like, how is that not already a general question? So what you just described and it sounds like a herculean effort. Right, So you had an event and you've got all that organization and it was eight months before and then two weeks before other guys show up. That's a coordinated event. And when you think about the big picture of things, that was your one event. Trump did that one event, but he had just done something the thursday before, and then he did something the tuesday. They're doing that every single day. Do they put that much effort in every single one of those? And could they have just gotten relaxed because they do it so much? I know, No, That's what I'm asking about. Is it that intent? I mean, that's impressive, But yeah, when you do most of those are like they're if you've done a bunch of them, they're they're all ran the same. Okay, guys, here's what we got to do. High Ground got this close off that this person's not you know, get the mags up. It's it's basically, you know, the same thing at every event. It's not like a it depends on the amount you're expecting. We were we were planning for ten thousand to fifteen thousand at D Day. It's always a play and I've heard what thirty at this yeah, thirty thousand. I don't know. Sometimes these these places surprise them, sure, but they plan. They try to plan for the worst and hope you know that that it's covered it. I think we're in your and I've worked with these guys. The cat team guys are all jacked up. Those are the guys that got that that came in. They did what they were supposed to do with the with the high prierate rifles and cover the cover the crowd. It is very intense for them. I mean their job is for that man or woman to never catch a bullet. And that's not like your normal law enforcement where they're focused on Okay, this is our building and this is all we got to worry about. Uh. They're all jacked up. Yeah, I mean they're h it's that intense every day, every time they go somewhere. It's that kind of effort because yeah, I would say everything. Yeah, I mean the rack the guy, the guy was in charge, was working with me at D day. He even told me, he goes, this is a great plan and you've worked very hard on it. Do not get your feelings hurt when they walk in here and trash it. There's a really good chance in eighty percent of time they trash it. And the only thing they did do is they moved our tag teams out from underneath that shower, that restroom area behind where President Bush was and they put their cat team guys in there. I didn't get hurt feelings over that. We moved with the state team down to the elementary school to cover the protesters and the motor Ca coming up, and then my tag team was over and won of the construction trailers off to the side and we were to respond to a certain area. Yeah, and these type of things, you do what you're told. You don't go out and left field. And that's one thing I really enerrated to the one hundred and twenty five officers working. Yeah, and it all went well, But I don't know what happened there. There's so many layers, like, yes, it's just the not I mean, the roof is one thing. If that, but if that was the only thing, it's not. It's so many they encountered him thirty minutes. I was going to say that when we had two that we encountered at D Day. One tried to get into the lower side there to the right of DDA through the wooded area, and one actually got off the bus and somebody he was acting strange on the bus that was communicated. Our team called him between the bus and the act and he was not allowed to come in. If we even had a suspicion or you were acting, you're not coming in period. You're not coming in, and we're going to take you. And we took that guy to the PD and held him until the event was over with because we didn't know where to take him or what to do with him. He wasn't from around here, and we won't turn him loose back even though we had these layers. That's another failure that I don't understand. That's what I'm saying. There's so many does so that we've all seen the video that it seems like the people that seem to be more worried about a guy on a roof are Trump supporters. And you can hear them telling cops how kind of a relay would it be even if it was a local cop. Because I don't know who it was that got told that. How long does it take from that person to know anything that was just said to the snipers or someone else to know that, hey, we got something going on, don't let this man speak. Yeah, how does the communication happen between you've got state police, you've got uh Secret Service, you've got policed. How does all of that work at this event? At these events? So we I could talk to everybody, And that's something that we started a while back, and D Day does it as of today. Everybody could talk to everybody. That's that's one thing. Now Secret Service shows up and we fixed their radios so they can at least listen or listen. And just like the one walking up, you know, getting off the bus, we knew within as soon as somebody reported it to us. It wasn't like he was on the roof. They just got off the bus and said, hey, this guy is acting weird. It was communicated within a minute we were somebody was on it. So there, I hate to say there's a delay. I can only imagine what those counter sniper guys are going through because back during the day when I was, when we worked with them, because they came in early too. They came in three or four days early, and I can remember we actually had to with their weapons and armory and we took all of our keys away and so they could lock it up overnight and we couldn't get in there because they didn't want anybody tamper with those those weaponscause they were already zeroed in that morning. We took them to a range and zero the man. They didn't want so, but those guys I told him, I asked them at one point, I said, so, when do you have to ask for mission to take a shot? Yeah? Now, it's my understanding that they'd had to. I don't know if that, you know, I'm waiting to see the fallout or see how that goes. But those guys said no, as soon as the threat pops up, we can identify it not being a police officer, you know, engaging somebody else, which could happen another sniper team engaged in it. And then they you know, so no, they they would took him out immediately. So that's a discussion about a stand down, you would think, because of the rumor. And there's another problem I have at least, when once you let so much time happen in a rumors start, you've made it worse for them to not have come out and said there was no stand down. And then the thing that was leaked to make it sound like there was a stand down rule, like don't shoot that that should not allow to be continued on. I mean, it's gonna come out. Yeah, we heard eighty second because we're saying the time the officer engaged him up there in the first shot. I keep hearing this eighty seconds that had transpired somewhere in there. Somebody should have made a decision. That's that's a long time. I think it is. It's like, hey, we got a gallon the roof of the rifle. Uh yeah, and they're just waiting for him to talk. But that's the thing. If you hear that alone, Yeah, yeah, why isn't Trump off the stage? Then? Now that that too? Yeah? That that? I mean, why would we even take it a chance? I mean, yeah, I got to there's so many things. I mean, but I'm like you when you're not. She's done this interview, and all she did was make it works. I mean, saying that someone couldn't get up there because of a slope, I'm just I'm even. I mean, even the dumbest people know that that's not true. No, they're they're trained to be on slopes, upside down, hanging from whatever. I mean, the guys I had up here. You know how slope it is up there? Yeah, I mean the first team coming up the hill there, they're on that slope. That's that's coming back down in elementary school. You've got to operate in all those positions. I can't. I don't. I can't figure out why she's I can't figure out a lot of things. And even if you said you wan't going to have someone on the rouse, you can't have someone standing around the building, right. You can't have multiple people stand around the building that you decided you couldn't get up on the roof of. I don't understand it. Everybody shouldn't shouldn't Like with our visit, everybody knew their responsibilities. There is no question, no doubt. If I put you, Brian on on watching elementary school that front door, that's what you do. Yes, that is your response. There's no pee breaks, there's no you're not You're not your pope. Now was your dad saying to me hunting all the time, you don't leave your nose. So so the cop and then these are rumors here, so I don't know what them, and you guys may know. I have known more about the story than I do. But the guy that heard about it. So he went up and and may have saved Trump's life because he made him point and and and the guy being hurty. Yeah. So so a cop can climb a roof and then see him and then come back down or fall down, but he doesn't have anybody else with him. I don't that that part. I don't understand either. Well. And I think I heard today that there was actually another officer that was helping him up up there. Why didn't you just if he had a ladder, I've heard a ladder of her air condition. Why didn't just use his ladder? Yeah? That the first thing I thought when when I heard that, When I heard the officer saw him and Gage was Evaldi, That's what I thought. I mean, I was like, do we have to go through this again? These police engauge? I thought he was just trying to duck for cover until he could to his web. Now. Yeah, but because I thought of this, I probably fell. I mean, if no, I know, to me, I would hope if somebody saw anybody with a gun out there, they would be up on the roof no matter what. Oh, well, I think it's an engaged police. Don't move, Please drop your weapon. And the next thing if he doesn't is a nogging shot. Yeah. Sorry, it's just like no, no, don't. I don't this this thing of us waiting anymore or negotiating. And when he's standing, I mean, you know they had to shooting outside of the Republican Convention. It's obvious when you see the video. The guy was lunging at the other guy with a knife. Yes, that's absolutely you're gonna get You're gonna get shot after the police officers are screaming drop it. Yeah, you know, so uh good for them. You engage and you know, I'm sorry what you don't listen. This is what happens. It's not abuse or anything. I would like to go back to one thing. So when when she talks about the thirty percent female, I'll tell you a little story. A lot not a lot of people know, but when we first took office with Mike Brown at the Sheriff's office, there were no females. None. And I was the first one to step up and said, you know, Sheriff, we've got to go find at least five qualified females and put one on each shift. We have female problems. They're going to run into female problems. I don't want the male officer to get in trouble exactly. So it took me about a year, but I will tell you this, I didn't lower any standards. They had to do the same thing. They had to shoot the same scores, and we fought through it. And you know, all five of those females, there's one still there and two of them's retired and one's working from another agency, so they're still in the ball game where they played it out. Those were five really good, solid females. And you can do it if you just work with them. You don't have to lower the standards. And at a certain point, if they can't do it, you have to have that talk with these and I've had that talk with the federal female. We've done everything we can. Well. I so appreciate you coming in today and you've cleared up some things that I questions that I had, and I'm so grateful that you were able to come in. But before you leave, I want to touch on something that I'm just curious about. How does Bedford County in the Bedford area, what's the connection there, because we seem to we seem to have people like yourself that end up in d C somehow or I mean just recent the name is uh, the one that's on Governor Younkin's detail, Yeah, Sun was Yeah, is there a connection that it's just I don't I don't know if it's a it's a it's a path that God has put you on. I'm gonna bring that up because I had no intentions when I went in with Mike Brown and ever leaving right he was bringing me to be sheriff and when I was involved in and not eleven and my buddy from the Secret Service, a bunch of them that I met at D Day during that visit had moved over to Homeland Security. They started the recruiting process and that's how I got the call, Hey, we need somebody with your experience to come come to d C and play that supervisor's role because we're not getting this, We're not getting the experience we want. And you know, and I had a long talk with Mike Brown about it, and you know, he came from the FEDS, so he was retired atf and he said, hey, look, this is an opportunity. You'll never get it ever again. And they waved my age. You have to be thirty seven going the academy, I was thirty eight. There's a lot of things that they waved for a bunch of It's not only me just to get what they what they wanted in there, and it's just one of those things where it kind of fell on my lap. But I also had to support of my boss and which sometimes that doesn't happen, Like, you know what, really, you know, what does it take to keep you here? It's usually what you hear, and I didn't hear that from him, like, go get your federal experience. It's a great opportunity, and it ended up being a great opportunity. So did you enjoy your time with the federal Uh? Now, it's a when you're working with retired Secret Service guys. They have their way, so you had to learn their way and that was a little bit of a tough road at first. But after I pulled my two years of so called you know, on the street and work working the grunt side of it, I was offered opportunity to go to the Joint Tears and Task Force in Richmond and work there for three years and work terrorism for eighty nine jurisdictions and and Virginia, and I thoroughly, even though it was going back on the street and working cases, I thoroughly enjoyed. Uh. And I think we've talked about this before I was assigned to the FBI, and you know, that's a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. But I will tell you this that working at that level, those people aren't like that. These are well. That was my question is is the politics at the top level everybody else just works hard like normal, Yes, especially k out of a political appointee, like at that time, the Homeland Security Secretary was a political appointe. The TSA director was a political appointee. And they're either attorneys or there's somebody's buddy. They've never done the work. Uh, you know, so it's just it's frustrating, and then they bring their cronies in and then it just starts. It makes it so frustrating with you know, I still talk to my old FBI boss. They're they're retired on the beach down there. And one was an assistant director to Coomy and he couldn't stand a guy when he worked for him because he was an attorney versus an FBI guy that's worked his way through through the rank, and it's just it's sad when you're sitting there scratching your head about all these fives of courts and everything. And I've been involved in fives of courts. I've been invived in wire tapping, and the stuff I had to go through to get that is unbelievable. I mean it's it's and they're on you every week making sure that you're not violating somebody's rights. And that's when when I first heard about all those violations, I was like, how does this happen? It doesn't happen at that grunt level, at that you know, the first line supervisor level. Oh my god. Yeah again, thank you so much, appreciate it. And I'm so glad that Bedford County has that resource in you. So I appreciate it again. I hope to have you back on the program for better circumstances, or how about when we find out more about what went on as he came back and oh yeah, I'd love to have you. And if you want to talk about emergency management. This is the first time that they've taken this out of the fire department and actually made a standalone which needed to be done as a full time position, and I've been drinking from a fire host since last Yune. Okay, it's just it's one of those things. It's every day just trying to catch up with what's supposed to be done. Perfect but absolutely all right. Thank you, well appreciated.
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