My Secret Service Story
A thwarted school shooting, rooftop snipers, and Dick Cheney
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The internet is full of hot takes about yesterday’s assassination attempt on former President Trump in Pennsylvania. I am trying not to be too reactionary or conspiratorial at this stage and have been trying to read more than write at this stage. As such, I won’t have much to say about the specific shooting in Pennsylvania.
Rather, I wanted to talk about a chance encounter I had with another politician under the protection of the Secret Service many years ago and reflect on how violence touches so much of our everyday lives in America.
When I was in high school, Dick Cheney came to our school in Northeast Ohio to give a campaign speech during the 2000 presidential election.
At the time, he was the vice presidential candidate on George W. Bush’s ticket and was using our school to tout the Bush team’s proposed “No Child Left Behind” initiative.
I’ll never know exactly why they chose our high school for a campaign stop, but it’s worth pointing out that our high school was also known for clinging to a Confederate mascot and name, which I’ve written about before. Beyond having a student dress as a Confederate soldier during football games and the marching band playing “Dixie,” we also used to set off an actual cannon anytime the football team scored during home games.
Cheney’s visit happened during a very different time in our world. It was about a year before the September 11 attacks, in a time when security was more lax and school shootings were still pretty rare. The shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado had happened about a year and a half earlier, but it still felt like an isolated incident more than a pattern.
Before Cheney’s motorcade even arrived, there were snipers with assault rifles perched on the roof of the school. My recollection was that police dogs were also roaming the halls sniffing lockers, but beyond that, things didn’t feel overly secure or locked down.
My friends and I were producing a public access TV show at the time, and for a few days in advance, I had been pestering the office staff about trying to get a campaign contact or any other lead so that I might secure an interview with the candidate.
After being rebuffed by the school office staff several times, I thought it was unlikely that I would be allowed to film anything or speak to Cheney. I packed my video camera the morning of the assmebly just in case, but hadn’t put in the effort to charge the batteries or pack blank video tapes.
But when I checked one last time, I was told to check with the campaign staff near the gym, where Cheney was set to speak. I stopped by and found a “media sign in” table. I introduced myself and said I wanted to film at the event (the notion of an interview felt out of the realm of possibility at that point).
To my surprise, the woman behind the table didn’t ask to see any kind of ID or credential. She simply asked me and my friends to sign in, then handed me a press badge. She also directed me to the press risers at the back of the gym where both national and local news outlets had set up cameras.
As other news photographers set up large tripods with long lenses, I had a camcorder with half charged batteries and no video tape. In a panic, I asked my friend Jake to run back to my house to pick some up. I handed him my house keys and told him to return as quickly as he could.
My house was the equivalent of maybe three or four blocks from the high school. Jake must have sprinted so fast, because he was there and back in a matter of minutes.
It was only later, in thinking more about that day, that we remembered the snipers on the roof and the other security measures in place. The school was supposed to be in lockdown once the candidate was on site- nobody could enter or exit.
Somehow, my friend Jake made it out of the building, running, without arousing any suspicion. Even more miraculously, he made it back to the school, also running, carrying a bag under his arms with videotapes. He should have attracted the attention of the rooftop snipers or the local police and at least been questioned about where he was going and why he was running. But nobody stopped him.
As I thought about how a shooter could have evaded Secret Service yesterday, all I could picture was Jake running right past snipers undetected.
After the assembly, we were able to join other members of the media for a brief Q&A session with Cheney and his wife in a classroom near the gym. We were not credentialed members of the media, had not been subjected to any kind of background check or search, and yet, we were seated at a table directly across from the potential next vice president of the United States.
Cheney and Bush went on to win the presidency in 2000 (or perhaps “claim” the presidency is more appropriate). The administration went on to inflict violence around the world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. Violence from which Cheney made money.
Cheney also shot hunting companion Harry Whittington in 2006.
Whittington’s injuries were pretty bad, according to a 2023 piece from Paul Farhi in The Washington Post:
“The blast hit Whittington with more than 200 pieces of lead birdshot, causing scores of wounds across his eye socket, hairline, neck and torso. One piece lodged near his heart and caused a mild heart attack a few days later. One of his lungs collapsed. Another piece narrowly missed his carotid artery. He nearly bled out.”
The White House blamed Whittington for his own injuries, even though, according to Farhi’s conversations with Whittington, it seemed that Cheney didn’t follow hunting protocols.
Farhi’s piece also implies that Cheney never even apologized for shooting Whittington in the face and nearly killing him.
As for my high school, less than a decade after Cheney’s speech, it would be the site of a thwarted school shooting. A student fired two shots in the school building, shattering a trophy case. He turned the gun on himself and held it to his head, when school administrators were able to talk him down.
Jeff Jevnikar was the shooter. He survived and he gave an interview to Ohio news station WBNS in 2022 where he recalled what he was feeling on that day:
“Jevnikar: So when I was there, and I shot the first shot, it's almost like it made me realize that it was really happening and it wasn't just all an idea in my head anymore. And it scared me.
[WBNS reporter Bennett] Haeberle: It scared you?
Jevnikar: Yeah. But I know I'm scaring the hundreds of other kids. But what I'm trying to say is that it almost kicked me back into reality out of that fantasy or delusional mindset. And it just hit me that I was really doing what I was thinking about doing. It wasn't an idea wasn't a fantasy anymore. I was really there holding a gun in my high school that I had shot. No going back from there.”
As I have been scrolling social media in the aftermath of yesterday’s events, I have been struck with how emphatically Democratic politicians have been stating that political violence has no place in the United States. It’s a sentiment that feels woefully out of touch.
I can draw so many violent connections from a single encounter with Dick Cheney at my suburban Ohio high school in 2000, from school shootings to hunting accidents. And I glossed over Iraq and Afghanistan.
We shouldn’t all be within one or two degrees of separation of horrifically violent acts, yet here we are. And I fear things are about to get a whole lot worse.
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