Secret Service officers walk along the lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on... Read More
Less than 24 hours later, another interloper drove up to a White House gate where he didn’t belong, closing streets in a city already on edge.
The back-to-back breaches in Washington put the U.S. Secret Service under a spotlight twice in two days. As a U.S. lawmaker called for hearings, an agency official said that in a free and open society, security has its limits.
“We could stop the breaches tomorrow. We have a great plan to do it,” Ed Donovan, an agency spokesman and deputy assistant director, said in an interview yesterday. “We’re going to close down Pennsylvania Avenue and we’re going to
put barbed wire on the fence.”
Donovan made clear his comment was sarcastic, borne of frustration as his agency has labored through scandal and a string of bad press. For every person who makes headlines by slipping through the outer perimeter of White House security, there are thousands of success stories, Donovan said. In the past two years, the agency has protected 12,000 venues for the president, vice president, foreign dignitaries and others.
“This is alarming, this incident, and we’re taking appropriate measures to look into it,” Donovan said. “We understand that we get scrutinized for misconduct and we should. But this isn’t misconduct. It’s a security breach.”
Not Misconduct
Thousands of visitors pass legally through the White House front door every year and millions more gather just yards away on Pennsylvania Avenue, poking cameras through the decorative iron bars that ring the front garden.The Sept. 19 incident was different.
A man wearing jeans and a T-shirt jumped the north fence and ran across the lawn at 7:20 p.m. He ignored agents’ orders to stop before agents nabbed him just inside the north portico, the building’s main ceremonial entrance.
The breach forced a partial evacuation of the mansion just minutes after President Barack Obama and his two daughters had left to spend the weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, where First Lady Michelle Obama was waiting.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary identified the fence-jumper as Omar J. Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas. According to court documents, he was carrying a folding knife with a 3.5-inch serrated blade.
Facing Charges
Gonzalez faces federal charges of entering a restricted building while carrying a weapon, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A U.S. District Court magistrate judge in Washington yesterday ordered him held without bond pending a hearing tomorrow.Margarita O’Donnell, a lawyer representing Gonzalez at his court appearance, said he served 18 years in the military, including three tours in Iraq, and reported living in the Washington area for about three months.
Gonzalez told Secret Service agents he was “concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing” and wanted to alert the president, according to an affidavit filed with the court.
The second incident occured about 4 p.m. yesterday, when Secret Service agents stopped and arrested a man who tried to drive his car through the executive mansion’s 15th Street gate. The entrance, near the White House visitor center, is one of the property’s busiest, and the incident closed nearby streets for an hour.
Kevin Carr, a resident of Shamong, New Jersey, born in 1995, was charged with unlawful entry and sent on his way, Leary said.
‘Full Confidence’
As he has in the past, Obama expressed his “full confidence” in the agency.“The Secret Service is in the process of conducting a thorough review of the event on Friday evening and we are certain it will be done with the same professionalism and commitment to duty that we and the American people expect” from the Secret Service, White House spokesman Frank Benenati said in a written statement.
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson posted additional patrols and surveillance along the Pennsylvania Avenue fence line and ordered the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility to conduct a review of the incident.
Breaches Common
Breaches of the White House perimeter are relatively common, especially from pedestrian walk along the north lawn, considered the mansion’s front yard.On Sept. 11, the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, agents took a man into custody after he jumped the fence to the north lawn. Last month, a toddler squeezed through the barrier onto the grass before being retrieved by agents and returned to his parents.
In May, a driver trailed a motorcade through a security checkpoint, forcing an hour-long lockdown of the building.
The Secret Service, part of the Department of Homeland Security, has had responsibility for protecting the president since 1894. The agency employs about 7,000 people and has a $1.6 billion budget.
Allegations of misconduct have dogged the agency in recent years. Nine employees were fired or left voluntarily after a 2012 incident between agents and prostitutes in Colombia, where service members were preparing for an Obama trip. Last year, Director Mark Sullivan retired from the agency after 30 years.
“The problem appears to be getting worse, not better,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee panel responsible for security agencies. The Utah Republican said he intends to hold hearings.
“We have a whole series of questions not just about this incident but a whole series of incidents,” Chaffetz said. “We have good men and women but I really question the management.”
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