Short on sharpshooters: New report says Secret Service understaffed
A new report from the Dept. of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found the U.S. Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team, or CS, is understaffed. The partly-redacted report shows the CS needs a 73% increase in staffing to meet the necessary level for mission requirements.
Sniper understaffing
The report expressed concerns over the team’s ability to protect some of America’s most important people.
“Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security,” the report reads.
The report shows that the number of events requiring snipers increased by 150% from 2020 to 2024. However, the number of snipers increased by only 5% during the same period.
To make up the difference, the Secret Service relied on overtime and snipers from other DHS components to meet mission requirements.
“From calendar years 2020 to 2024, counter snipers worked a total of 247,887 hours in overtime, approximately the equivalent of an additional 24 full-time employees per year,” the report reads.
Another tactic to ensure proper staffing was to use snipers who did not meet mandatory weapons requalification requirements. Those sessions include retesting abilities to shoot during the day and night.
Despite that, those shooters supported 11% of the 426 events requiring snipers last year.
Why the review?
This review began following the shooting at a President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Counter snipers shot and killed Thomas Crooks, who killed an audience member in attendance.
This review is one of several internal probes following that incident.
“We conducted this review to determine the extent to which the Secret Service’s CS is prepared to respond to threats at events attended by protectees,” the report reads.
Following the incident, the service began offering recruitment incentives and retention bonuses.
Fixing the problem
To fix this issue, Congress enabled the “Enhanced Presidential Security Act of 2024.”
That requires the Secret Service to apply the same standards for determining the number of agents needed to protect presidents, vice presidents and major candidates for those offices.
“Before this law, the Secret Service had authority to protect major Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, but as CS officials explained to us, because resources were limited, requests for counter snipers from the Presidential Protective Division (i.e., the sitting President) had always been given priority over other requests,” the report reads.
The staffing model was then updated in 2025, but the exact number of counter snipers needed was redacted.
The report was also critical of the hiring process.
“The Secret Service’s approach does not allow for timely hiring, training, and deployment of a counter sniper to CS,” the report reads. “For example, instead of recruiting directly from a larger pool of candidates such as former military counter snipers or personnel from other Federal agencies, CS officials stated that they restrict eligibility to officers already serving in the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division.”
Before March 2024, it would reportedly take almost three years before one of those officers could become a CS. The rules changed that month, reducing the time it takes to become a CS.
The report also came with two recommendations.
The first is to develop a strategy and implementation plan to enable the Secret Service to achieve full staffing to meet mission requirements. The second recommendation is to develop and implement a process to ensure the CS team meets weapon requalification.
“The Secret Service concurred with both recommendations,” the report reads.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
