Driver in custody after crashing into White House gate
A driver crashed into an exterior gate at the White House shortly before 6 p.m. Monday and was taken into custody, the Secret Service said, adding that the agency was still investigating whether the crash was intentional.
“We can definitively say there is no risk to the complex or the adjacent neighborhood, and the investigation into his motivations continues,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement.
President Biden was not in the White House during the crash.
Images from the scene showed the rear of a gray SUV with a Virginia license plate stopped for a security checkpoint on the edge of the White House complex. No damage was visible, but the photos did not show the front of the car.
The Washington Fire Department also responded to the incident and said it had cleared the accident scene shortly after 7 p.m. Mr. Guglielmi placed on the X platform Shortly after 7:30 p.m., it was announced that the vehicle had been evacuated by local police and that the streets closed to traffic around the White House would be reopened.
At the time of the crash, Mr. Biden was on his way to Dallas to attend a vigil for former Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson after giving a campaign speech in Charleston, S.C.
Officials have strengthened the White House in recent years response to cases of people jumping over the fences. The Secret Service was upgrading the fences during the past year to double their height to about 13 feet.
In May, a 19-year-old man crashed a rented U-Haul truck into security barriers near the White House. No one was injured in the incident and the truck contained no weapons or ammunition, but the driver expressed his admiration for Hitler and told authorities he planned to kill Mr Biden, who was in the White House at the time.
In December, a Delaware man, who authorities said was driving drunk, crashed into Mr. Biden’s motorcade as the president was talking to reporters on the street in downtown Wilmington, Del. That crash was ruled an accident and no one was injured.
There have been at least two fatal accidents near Capitol Hill in recent years. Nearly three months after the riot on January 6, 2021, a car crashed into two Capitol Police officers, killing one and injuring the other. The attacker was shot dead after he lunged at police officers with a knife.
In August 2022, another man drove his car into a barricade near the Capitol. The man then exited the burning vehicle and fired a gun into the air several times before shooting himself as police officers approached him.
Eileen Sullivan reporting contributed.