The Secret Service is renewing its effort to construct a White House replica “inch by inch.”
The James J. Rowley Training Center, a 500-acre center in Laurel, Maryland, is the anticipated location of a White House replica for Secret Service agents’ training. In the past, agents have resorted to utilizing Tyler Perry’s replica of the residence in his film studio in Atlanta, Georgia.
“In order for our officers and agents to train up properly, they have to see what it’s like to be at the White House. It’s an important complex to know. There’s a lot of ins and outs, and something as simple as the local fire department showing up to help with a fire, and they need to know where they are going,” said Sean Curran, the newly appointed Secret Service director under President Donald Trump, on Fox News’s My View with Lara Trump. “So it is critical to our mission to have a training facility that reflects the white house inch by inch and detail by detail, it’s just critical to our mission, and that’s what we hope to have.”
An $8 million plan to build a White House replica has been in the works since 2015 to no avail. Curran claimed the difference this time is he has “a lot of support on the hill, and a lot of support from the president, and certainly a lot of support from the Secretary of DHS.”
Curran also provided a glimpse inside the training village at the JJRTC. There agents train for rallies that occur in cities “new to us.” Curran noted the training simulates a rally situation “our agency wasn’t quite used to because it was a large event.”
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Trump faced two assassination attempts before he even took office for his second term. Curran was an agent himself during both attempts and was on stage with Trump following the first attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in three people wounded and one fatality.
Corey Comperatore, 50, a volunteer fire chief, husband, and father, was the single fatality.