Secret Service countersnipers hunt for real snipers

Source: CNN.com

Look up at any presidential event and you’re likely to see them: men dressed in black, armed to the teeth, looking back.

It’s no secret; they’re with the Secret Service.

On Tuesday at the inauguration, members of the U.S. Secret Service’s elite countersniper unit will be out in force, taking roof-top positions along Pennsylvania Avenue and elsewhere as the presidential motorcade glides past throngs of people for the swearing in of Barack Obama.

The Secret Service doesn’t mind you knowing they are up there. In fact, their mere presence at the inauguration has a deterrent effect, they say. But they are mum about many other details, including how many teams will be deployed, how long they work and about their custom firearms. Video Watch countersniper detail up-close »

Unit commander Lt. Bernard Hall jokingly calls the weapon a JAR — “Just Another Rifle.”

Since the unit formed in 1971, the unit has never had to fire a JAR to safeguard a person they are assigned to protect.

“When you look at that parade on the day of the inauguration, every building that we will pass by … has been surveyed, and that is done by the Countersniper Team,” said Secret Service director Mark Sullivan. “They will be familiar with every building; they will be familiar with every potential threat.”

But the absence of gunfire — a welcome absence in this line of work — doesn’t mean they have never identified or mitigated a threat, Sullivan says.

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