Secret Service arrested the driver of a van late Monday night after the vehicle crashed into security barriers along Lafayette Square near the White House, authorities said.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said a preliminary investigation found the driver « may have intentionally bumped into the crash barriers ».
The incident occurred on the north side of Lafayette Square at 16th Street NW, about a block from the White House, shortly before 10 p.m., he said. He added that there were no injuries to White House or Secret Service personnel.
Authorities closed streets for blocks around the White House as they completed an inspection of the truck, which Mr. Guglielmi said found nothing dangerous. A spokesman for the DC Fire Department said his agency was called in to help with the investigation and local TV stations broadcast images of a robot opening the back of the truck.
The Secret Service was conducting interviews to try to determine the « cause and manner » of the crash, Guglielmi said.
Police officials have fortified the White House in recent years response to requests of people who violate the complex. The Secret Service has begun updating the White House perimeter fence last year, doubling their height to about 13 feet. A kid broke through that fence last month squeezed between the bars on the north side of the complex.
There have been at least two fatal accidents of vehicles crashing into barricades near Capitol Hill in the past two years. In 2021, nearly three months after the deadly January 6 riot, a car crashed into two Capitol Police officers, killing one and injuring the other. The attacker, Noah R. Green, was killed after lunging at police officers with a knife.
In August, another man drove his car into a barricade near the Capitoline Hill. The man, Richard A. York III, then exited the burning vehicle and shot into the air several times before shooting himself as police officers approached him.
