Political commentator Michael Reagan told
Newsmax TV on Wednesday that the greatest danger from the fatal shooting of two TV journalists in Virginia by a disgruntled former co-worker was copycat attackers on other media personnel.
"You'll see people out there who will see that he got his 15 minutes of fame, which is still going on," Reagan told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. "It'll give other people ideas."
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But he added that the deaths of Alison Parker, 24, and Adam Ward, 27, of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Va., will lead to news organizations tightening security on the staffers in the field.
"I am sure that news broadcasts and news organizations are going to do their best to be able to protect their reporters and their cameramen," Reagan said.
He then referenced the assassination attempt on his father, President Ronald Reagan, by John Hinckley Jr. in March 1981. The younger Reagan said he had talked with the Secret Service agent in charge of his father's detail at the Washington Hilton Hotel that day.
"I asked … how in the world did you allow this to happen with all these services around my dad?" Reagan told Hayworth. "He said: 'You know, we train 24/7 to protect the protectees like yourself and your father and family, but people we can't protect against are the crazies' — and that's exactly what you have in this situation.
"You had the crazy who then uses social media to, in fact, enhance himself and what he did," Reagan said. "So there'll be others who will think about it — and hopefully the news organizations are going to do their best to be able to protect their reporters and their cameramen and others who are going to be out in the field."
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