White House intruder on grounds 16 min. before arrest - Secret Service

[rooster59]

White House intruder on grounds 16 min. before arrest - Secret Service

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A man who scaled the White House fence last week was on the property's grounds for 16 minutes before he was detained, the U.S. Secret Service said in a statement on Friday.

Jonathan Tran, 26, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for entering the grounds without permission.

He hopped a 5-foot fence near the U.S. Treasury Department, which is located next to the White House, then climbed an 8-foot vehicle gate and a shorter fence near the southeast corner of the East Wing of the White House grounds before he was caught, the Secret Service said.

"The Secret Service can confirm that at no time did the individual gain entry into the White House," the statement said.

Tran, from Milpitas, California, set off several alarms after jumping the fence but was able to avoid other sensors before he was discovered just steps from the main building, CNN reported on Friday.

The network also reported that Tran was spotted "looming around" Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue, where the White House is located, nearly six hours before his arrest.

The incident prompted Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House of Representatives oversight committee, to request that Secret Service Acting Director William Callahan provide a briefing on Monday. In a letter to Callahan on Friday, Chaffetz referred to allegations that Tran moved undetected around the grounds "for a considerable amount of time."

"The Committee has longstanding concerns regarding repeated security incidents at USSS-protected facilities," Chaffetz wrote. He noted that a 2015 committee report on the Secret Service found 143 breaches and attempted breaches over a 10-year period.

"The moment somebody jumps over the fence they have to be taken down," Chaffetz later told CNN. "This one scares me probably more than any because of the length of time, the proximity to the president, getting right up close to the White House and going so long without being detected. It makes no sense. I don't know what in the world they're doing but it is a total and complete embarrassment."

President Donald Trump was inside the residence at the time of the security breach late on March 10.

The Secret Service said it was taking additional steps to prevent security lapses.

Tran told federal agents that he was a friend of the president and had an appointment, according to court documents. He was carrying two cans of mace, a U.S. passport, a computer and one of Trump's books, authorities said.

Trump commended the Secret Service for doing a "fantastic job" apprehending Tran.

Tran was released with no bail on Monday and returned to California, where he must submit to GPS monitoring until his next hearing in Washington.

The intrusion was the latest in a series of breaches at the White House in recent years. Security has been boosted, including the installation in 2015 of sharp spikes on top of the black iron fence that circles the 18-acre (7-hectare) property.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-03-18

[55Jay]

Yep.  Used to have my training boys run small team ingress drills at 0200, in the spirit of old Dicky Marcinko's Red Cell exercises circa 1980s.  They would hit the fence, which set off an alarm, then they would haul ass quick and dirty into the interior zone to the sensitive command/control buildings.  We could track progress on various CCTV in the C2 cell, but they had the initiative and moved fast, so security forces play catch up.

[Credo]

When they said there was an intruder, I first thought they were talking about Trump.   

 

I would say that security needs to be tightened up quite a bit.   Sixteen minutes is a long time to be running around the grounds of the White House.   Perhaps the Secret Service are busy keeping an eye on Twitter?

[Suradit69]

Best instruder story was in 1982 when someone got into the Queen's bedroom at Buckingham Palace. Police were called but couldn't be bothered.

Quote

 

When Queen Elizabeth II woke up on the morning of July 9, 1982, she saw that a strange man was sitting on her bed. The man, dressed in jeans and a dirty T-shirt, was cradling a broken ashtray and dripping blood onto the royal linens from a lacerated hand.

The Queen kept calm and picked up the phone from her bedside table. She asked the operator at the palace switchboard to summon the police. Though the operator did pass the message to the police, the police didn't respond.

 

https://www.thoughtco.com/intruder-enters-queen-elizabeths-bedroom-1779399

 

The police did better in the case of another "intruder" though.

Quote

 

Prince Andrew reacted with fury at gun-wielding officers who mistook him for an intruder at Buckingham Palace and asked him to 'verify his identity.'  

Two heavily-armed policemen confronted him as he walked in broad daylight through the grounds, sources revealed last night. 
The fifth-in-line to the throne stood his ground asking the officers 'Don't you know who I am?' and was said to have ‘made his thoughts plain’ during the highly-charged confrontation that followed.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415374/Prince-Andrews-rage-Palace-police-Duke-angry-officers-mistook-intruder.html