Secret Service Arrests Two After Car Crashes Near White House

Two people were arrested near the White House on Monday morning after a car ran onto the sidewalk at the north end of Lafayette Park and, at roughly the same moment, a man jumped a security barricade a short distance away, the U.S. Secret Service said.

The first call came just before 10 a.m. at 16th and H streets NW. Secret Service Police and National Guard members responded to the north side of the park, directly across from the presidential residence, where a vehicle had driven onto the sidewalk.

"The driver was combative with law enforcement but was quickly placed under arrest," the Secret Service said in a statement.

"Around the same time, a second individual jumped a barricade near the northwest corner of Lafayette Park," the statement continued. "That individual was also quickly placed under arrest." The agency said both incidents are under investigation.

The White House went into a lockdown that lasted about 30 minutes, NBC Washington reported.

A smoking silver sedan on a brick walkway

Video shot at the scene by Martin Austermuhle, a reporter at The Washington Sun, shows a smoking silver sedan sitting on a brick walkway just north of the White House, with law enforcement officers closing in around it and National Guard troops standing by.

Officers tell the driver to get out. He emerges and appears combative, and several officers wrestle him to the ground. "Get on the ground!" someone shouts in the footage.

"Unclear what happened but someone just drove into a sign on the north end of Lafayette Square Park and then fought with Secret Service and National Guard when they got out of their car," Austermuhle wrote on social media alongside the video he posted Monday.

The car struck a historical marker, NBC Washington reported. The New York Post reported that the passenger car jumped a curb and hit an informational sign, and that it never reached the White House gates, which sit more than a block away. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The fence jumper came out of a crowd of tourists

Iris Mitchell was walking near the park when the second man took off. "We are walking with a group of about 20 people and then all of a sudden a guy with us, takes off running and scales the fence," she said. "And jumps over the fence into where I guess like the White House Lafayette Square area he just takes off running and everyone just start saying to freeze and they got their hands up!"

Officers caught him quickly. The man went over a temporary fence at Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street NW, and after his arrest he was taken to a hospital, NBC Washington reported.

Witnesses near the crash site described hearing a popping sound before smoke started pouring out of the car, according to FOX 5 DC. Police and National Guard troops pushed pedestrians and visitors out of the area and shut down the surrounding streets.

The bomb squad cleared the car

The Metropolitan Police Department's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was called in to sweep the vehicle "as a precaution," the Secret Service said. The bomb squad searched the car and determined it was safe.

Roads around Lafayette Park were closed while that work went on, then reopened.

Reporters were held in the West Wing briefing room

Secret Service agents ordered journalists on the White House grounds to stay inside the briefing room in the West Wing while officers worked the scene. Members of the press pool said on social media they had been placed in a security lockdown.

Normal operations resumed once the lockdown lifted.

President Donald Trump was inside the executive mansion at the time, preparing for meetings, the New York Post reported. The newspaper also reported that the driver was escorted away by uniformed Secret Service personnel while shouting "Oh my God!" as officers walked him along Pennsylvania Avenue.

The charges, according to a source familiar with the matter

The driver was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, related to the vehicle, and assault on a police officer, NBC Washington reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. The man who went over the barricade was charged with unlawful entry, the same source said.

Neither man was publicly identified. The Secret Service did not release names or announce charges itself, and 7News said it contacted the U.S. Attorney for D.C. to ask what charges the two men would face.

Tourists found the streets to the White House closed

Andrew David, visiting Washington from the UK, figured out something had happened when he came up from the subway. "When we got off the underground, metro as you call it, we discover the roads that want to take us down to White House so we could have our picture taken in front of it were closed and that's the point at which we realized that something happen," he told 7News.

He said the morning had not changed his plans to keep coming to the United States twice a year. "We've been coming for the last 20 years people at home were asking us did you really want to go we arrived on day of midterms which was a brilliant time for us to arrive because we like to absorb it," he said. "I didn't feel any undue stress no different than if we had gone into London."

What the Secret Service has not said

Nobody has explained why the driver crashed. Investigators have not said whether the car ran onto the sidewalk on purpose or whether the driver lost control, and no motive has been offered in either case.

Authorities believe the two incidents are unconnected, NBC Washington reported, even though they happened at about the same time in the same few blocks. The Secret Service has not confirmed any coordination between the crash and the fence jump, and when 7News pressed the agency on whether the two were linked, officials said that question is part of the investigation.

Permanent fencing was already on the table

Lafayette Park sits directly opposite the White House and draws a steady stream of tourists who stop to photograph the residence.

In July, The Washington Post reported that the administration was weighing permanent fencing around Lafayette Square and stretches of Pennsylvania Avenue. That proposal was developed by the Secret Service, the White House and the Interior Department, and was meant to let authorities shut public areas faster when a threat comes up.

An arrest four days earlier on Constitution Avenue

Monday's arrests came four days after Secret Service officers took a man into custody on Constitution Avenue near the White House perimeter. The Department of Homeland Security said the man, a Venezuelan national, was found sitting in a stolen car with a carful of guns and ammunition and told officers that voices in his head told him to come to Washington to "kill President Trump."

Authorities discovered the weapons inside the car and investigated threats made against the president, FOX 5 DC reported.

Officers raced back to the park before 4 p.m.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, several Secret Service vehicles headed to Lafayette Park with lights and sirens running. About 12 officers got out with their hands on their guns, NBC Washington reported. What prompted that response was not immediately clear.

Both of Monday morning's cases remain open. The Secret Service has not released the identities of the two men, and no agency has publicly laid out a motive for either one.