Bailey: "This just shows how weak and stupid Democrat elected Obama's Regime has become. It's really scary as this is the government that is suppose to protect us!"
WASHINGTON – A man jumped over the
fence of the White House on Friday and made it through the front door
before officers managed to apprehend him, the Secret Service said.
President Obama had departed the White House just minutes earlier.
The rare security breach was likely to renew intense scrutiny of the
Secret Service, an agency whose storied history has been marred in
recent years by multiple allegations of misconduct by officers. It was
unclear whether a fence-jumper has ever made it into the White House
before.
After scaling the fence on the north side of the White House, the
intruder darted toward the presidential residence, ignoring commands
from officers to stop, said Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan. He was
ultimately apprehended just inside the North Portico doors — the grand,
columned entrance that looks out over Pennsylvania Avenue.
Donovan said the man appeared to be unarmed to officers who spotted
him climbing the fence, and a search of the suspect turned up no
weapons. The suspect was transported to a nearby hospital for
examination after complaining of chest pain. He was charged with
unlawful entry into the White House complex.
The Secret Service identified the suspect as Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of
Copperas Cove, Texas. Attempts to reach Gonzales or his relatives by
phone Friday evening were unsuccessful.
The incident prompted a rare evacuation of much of the White House.
Inside the West Wing, White House staffers and Associated Press
journalists were rushed into the basement and out a side exit to a
nearby street by Secret Service agents — some with their weapons drawn.
Although it's not uncommon for people to make it over the White House
fence, they're typically stopped almost immediately and rarely get very
far. Video from the scene showed the suspect, in jeans and a dark
shirt, sprinting across the lawn as Secret Service agents shouted at
nearby pedestrians to clear the area.
"This situation was a little different than other incidents we have
at the White House," Donovan said. "There will be a thorough
investigation into the incident."
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who chairs the House Oversight
Committee's subpanel on national security, said it was "totally
unacceptable" that the fence-jumper made it inside the White House.
Chaffetz said he's been investigating the Secret Service for more than a
year and that there have been many security breaches that were never
publicly reported.
"Unfortunately, they are failing to do their job," Chaffetz said in
an email to the AP. "There are good men and women, but the Secret
Service leadership has a lot of questions to answer."
The incident occurred shortly after 7 p.m., only minutes after Obama
and his daughters, along with a guest of one of the girls, left the
White House aboard Marine One on their way to Camp David, the
presidential retreat in Maryland where Obama and his family were to
spend the weekend. First lady Michelle Obama had traveled separately to
Camp David and was not at home.
The Secret Service's elite reputation has suffered a succession of
blows in recent years, and Friday's breach marked yet another setback in
the agency's efforts to rehabilitate its image.
In 2012, 13 agents and officers were implicated in a prostitution
scandal during preparations for Obama's trip Cartagena, Colombia. The
next year, two officers were removed from Obama's detail after another
alleged incident of sexually-related misconduct. And in March, an agent
was found drunk by staff at a Dutch hotel the day before Obama was set
to arrive in the Netherlands.
Obama appointed the agency's first female director last year as a
sign he wanted to change the culture and restore public confidence in
its operations. An inspector general's report in December found no
evidence of widespread misconduct.
The Secret Service has struggled in recent years to strike the
appropriate balance between ensuring the first family's security and
preserving the public's access to the White House grounds. Once open to
vehicles, the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House
was confined to pedestrians after the Oklahoma City bombing, but
officials have been reluctant to restrict access to the area further.
Evacuations at the White House are extremely rare. Typically, when
someone jumps the White House fence, the compound is put on lockdown and
those inside remain in place while officers respond to the situation.
Last week, the Secret Service apprehended a man who jumped over the same
stretch of fence on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, prompting
officers to draw their firearms and deploy service dogs as they took the
man into custody.