WASHINGTON — Secret Service agents apprehended a man attempting to enter the White House grounds Thursday morning — but not before a brief scuffle that left one officer injured.
“Shortly after 11:30 a.m., a man was quickly detained by uniformed US Secret Service police officers after jumping over a construction bollard near the Treasury Building on the northeast side of the complex,” protective agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement.
“Officers encountered the individual near a pedestrian gate, where he engaged in a physical altercation before being taken into custody,” Guglielmi added.
A Secret Service officer suffered a laceration during the tussle, an injury that was described as non-life-threatening.
Authorities have not identified the intruder who was taken into custody approximately two hours before Trump departed the White House on a two-day Western trip to Nevada and Arizona.
Thursday’s incident comes a month after a man was arrested for driving a van through a temporary security barricade near the White House.
The driver, Christopher Cavanaugh, was charged with unlawful entry and destruction of property, according to local outlet WUSA9.
Cavanaugh, 35, reportedly told Secret Service agents he was trying to “deliver a present.”
The Ohio man was seen wearing a shirt that read, “Trump is my President, Jesus is my savior,” according to the outlet.
In February, Secret Service and local cops shot and killed an armed man who entered the grounds of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Austin Tucker Martin, 21, of Cameron, NC, was carrying a shotgun and a gas can when he sneaked through the club’s secure perimeter at 1:30 a.m. Feb. 22.
Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time.
