A driver died after crashing into a security barrier near the White House around 10:30 p.m. Saturday evening, triggering an investigation by the Washington Police Department, the Secret Service said in a statement.
“There is no threat or impact to public safety,” Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, wrote on social media, adding that the crash did not pose a threat to the White House. The city’s police department said it was investigating the crash “as a traffic accident only,” but the Secret Service said it would conduct a separate investigation into the driver’s background.
President Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, at the time of the crash, having arrived there on Friday evening.
The accident occurred on the eastern edge of the White House, near the intersection of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, a six-lane boulevard that connects the White House and the U.S. Capitol, Washington police said. Police arrived at the scene about 15 minutes after the accident and pronounced the driver, an adult male, dead.
Some images of the incident from WJLA in Washington showed a heavily damaged silver sedan crashing a few feet into the outermost barricade of the White House, which requires drivers entering the grounds to stop.
In January, police arrested a driver after a vehicle crashed into a safety barrier at the same intersection. And last May, a 19-year-old man crashed a rented U-Haul truck into the White House security barriers. He told authorities that he had planned to kill Mr. Biden, who was in the White House at the time.
In December, a Delaware man who authorities said was driving drunk crashed into Mr. Biden’s motorcade while the president was speaking to reporters on the street in downtown Wilmington. The accident was considered an accident and no one was injured.
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2024-05-05 14:46:51
www.nytimes.com
