Judicial Watch recently received 31 pages of records thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Department of Homeland Security.
The record identify Tafari Campbell’s companion who is named “Ms. Taylor” who was a witness of what took place.
Taylor said that Cambell “fell in the water and struggled for a couple of seconds before giving up and sinking underwater.”
What’s alarming is that the Secret Service was not able to get their boats to work and ended up using a groundskeeper’s boat to search for Campbell.
The July 24, 2023 report found that Campbell was paddleboarding and not wearing a life jacket: “Ms. Taylor stated that Mr. Campbell was not wearing a life jacket and had no personal flotation devices aboard the paddleboard at the time of the incident.”
A separate report added more drama to the scene (Agents names were redacted) stating that Campbell’s companion “collapsed on the ground and stated that Tafari had drowned. She stated that he fell in the water and struggled for a couple of seconds before giving up and sinking underwater.” The agent continued, describing how a supervisory agent and another agent “attempted to start one of the boats but had difficulties lowering the motor. I headed down with [redacted] but told her to continue down and yelled to SA [redacted] and SSA [redacted] that I would run to get the keys for our USSS boat. I sprinted to the CP [Command Post], grabbed the keys and sprinted back towards the boats. A similar issue occurred with the motor on the second boat. We jumped into a third boat belonging to the groundskeeper and it worked without issue.”
The report noted that Obama came to the scene along with local agencies to try and locate Campbell:
We continued our search with flashlights. Shortly thereafter we were called to Wilson’s Landing as FPOTUS Obama was there and the local Fire Department in conjunction with Massachusetts Police Department and other local agencies were setting up an Incident Command Post. He had wanted to talk with [redacted]. The first EMS/Police response we saw may have occurred within an hour. I recall seeing a small PD or Fire boat scanning the shoreline just after it was getting dark.
What is concerning is that the boats didn’t work and Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton believes it explains “why the Secret Service is still hiding video related to the tragic drowning.”
Those boats are for emergency situations and they didn’t work?
Who knows, (total speculation) maybe the agent was flustered and couldn’t get the boat started. But again that is a lack of training, if that was the issue.
Lastly, folks if you go out on the water, espcially in an area that is prone to strong rip tides, wear a life jacket.
