Can we blame Silivio Berlusconi’s Bodyguards?
In light of the incident that happened last week to the Italian PM, Many are pointing fingers at his Bodyguards. But is that fair?
Unlike the US , where Secret Services are responsible for the security of the president, in Italy, the detailing responsibilities befall on local Police, secret services, and personal Bodyguards. The big difference lies in the fact that in Italy, and many other EU countries, nobody has ranking as such that would order a PM not to have direct contact with the crowd.
And considering everything (political tensions, setting, conditions, size of crowd an so on), PM Berlusconi should not have been allowed to have contact with the crowd, whether he wanted or not. Point.
Now whose responsibility is this?
Furthermore, after the attack, the PM was rushed in his vehicle, which remained stationed and eventually he got out of his vehicle to show the crowed he was okay.
Another big NO NO. Unquestionably this should have been a dash and run through a pre-planned route.
Definitely, improvement must be made at many levels to insure proper safety of principles. A proper chain of command (to which any principle most obey), along with proper threat assessment will go much further than increasing the number of ground personnel.
Had this attack been a more elaborate, the outcome could have been much worse.
