The U.S. Secret Service has revealed that its agents shot an armed man near the White House during the early hours of Sunday while President Donald Trump was away at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida for the weekend.
According to reports, the Secret Service received intelligence from the local police that a “suicidal individual” was on his way from Indiana to Washington, D.C. Secret Service personnel later located the man’s vehicle and identified a person on foot matching the description provided by police.
The incident occurred near the intersection of 17th Street and F Street NW, just a short walk from the White House. A statement released by the agency did not clarify whether the White House or Trump were intended targets. The unidentified man has been hospitalized, although his condition is not yet known.
Suspect brandished a firearm
In a statement shared on X, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi noted that as officers approached, the individual brandished a firearm, leading to an armed confrontation in which the agents fired shots.
The Secret Service added that none of its personnel were injured and that the incident remains under investigation. As with all officer-involved shootings in Washington, D.C., the investigation is being led by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division Force Investigations Team.
In July 2024, President Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt when a gunman opened fire during an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing his ear. A Secret Service review later determined that communication failures and a lack of diligence contributed to the close call.
“The absence of radio logs or recordings significantly limits the ability to reconstruct events for either investigative or evaluative purposes,” a report on the matter stated.
Recent armed confrontations
In recent years, several incidents have involved security officers shooting armed individuals on or near the White House grounds, including a 2016 case where a man was shot after brandishing a handgun at a White House security gate. In 2023, a 20-year-old Indian immigrant attempted but failed to breach the White House’s protective barriers using a rented truck.
In September last year, an incident occurred when suspected gunman Ryan Routh was charged with the attempted assassination of Trump following an event at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Authorities revealed that Routh’s cell phone records showed he had been waiting outside the golf course fence for nearly 12 hours that day. While Trump played, a Secret Service agent conducting a security sweep ahead of the Republican presidential nominee noticed the barrel of a rifle pointed in the agent’s direction.
In the wake of such incidents, a bipartisan panel has recommended that Congress, the Homeland Security Department, and the Secret Service “consider the protective role the Secret Services plays for foreign leaders” and evaluate whether these duties could be transferred or eliminated to allow the Secret Service to focus on its primary responsibility: safeguarding the President and other key U.S. leaders.