A man has been detained after driving up to a security checkpoint at the White House and claiming he had an explosive device inside, authorities have said.
Officials stopped the car Saturday night, about a quarter-mile from President Trump’s executive residence.
The incident marks the third safety scare in two weeks at the White House, raising concerns about lapses in security under the Secret Service’s watch.
Earlier Saturday, someone jumped a low metal barrier just outside a White House fence. About a week earlier a man breached an outer perimeter fence and scaled a vehicle gate to gain entry to the White House grounds and was said to have spent 16 minutes on the property before he was stopped.
A vehicle approached the White House around 11 pm Saturday and was deemed suspicious, a Secret Service spokesperson told Fox News about the latest reported breach.
‘An individual drove a vehicle up to a Secret Service checkpoint located at 15th Street and E Street NW,’ the spokesperson said.
‘Upon contact with the individual, US Secret Service Uniform Division Officers detained the individual and declared his vehicle suspicious.’
Only one person was inside the vehicle, an official told the network. Authorities haven’t identified the suspect or given a possible motive, and they didn’t specify whether alcohol or drugs were a factor.
The Secret Service is now investigating.
Donald Trump wasn’t at the White House at the time and is instead spending the weekend with his family at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Saturday evening’s incident was the second of the day. A man had previously jumped over a bike rack in front of the White House around 1 pm, according to authorities.
The man had a document he wanted to give to someone at the White House and wasn’t carrying a weapon, CNN reported citing law enforcement.
Two Secret Service agents arrested the man after two minutes and took him in for questioning.
Criminal charges were pending, the Secret Service said.
Members of the administration are now set to meet Monday to address security concerns at the White House, Fox News reported. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, acting Secret Service Director William Callahan and House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz are due to attend.
On March 10, 26-year-old Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran was arrested and accused of scaling a White House fence before traipsing on the grounds of the executive residence for a significant period of time.
Tran, of Milpitas, California, had on him two cans of mace, a US passport, an Apple laptop, a book written by Trump, and a letter to the president, according to a police report.
The suspect managed to climb over an outer perimeter fence, scale a vehicle gate and hop another fence near the southeast corner of the White House’s East Wing before he was captured after his 16 minute-plus jaunt, according to the Secret Service statement.
‘[Homeland Security chief John] Kelly told me that this person was there on the ground for 17 minutes, went undetected, was able to get up next to the White House, hide behind a pillar, look through a window, rattle the door handle,’ the lawmaker told CNN.
Following the incident President Trump praised the Secret Service for a ‘fantastic job’.
The White House has seen a string of high-profile trespassing incidents in recent years.
In one notable 2014 incident, while Barack Obama was president, a disturbed Army veteran jumped the White House fence, sprinted across the lawn and entered the building with a knife in his pocket.
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