The Secret Service arrested two individuals for attempting to enter the White House in separate, back-to-back incidents on Sunday and Monday that highlight continued security threats at the president’s residence.
One suspect attempted to hop over a bicycle rack on the White House’s south side on Sunday around 11:30 p.m., according to a Secret Service official. A second individual was arrested Monday around 6:45 a.m. after he tried to slip through an entrance gate to the White House as a construction worker left.
Both incidents set the White House on lockdown.
The two suspects were "immediately arrested" by the Secret Service’s uniformed division and "charged with unlawful entry" to the White House, according to the official. Neither of the individuals was armed, the official said.
Details about the suspects remain sparse.
Following their arrests, both individuals were handed over to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s second district and are expected to appear in court.
The back-to-back confrontations come as the Secret Service implements a slew of internal reforms following a high-profile breakdown in security protocol that allowed a man with a knife to storm a White House fence and make his way into the compound before being stopped.
The incidents were the latest in a series of breaches and ethical violations by Secret Service agents that led to the resignation of Julia Pierson, the agency’s director.
The Secret Service announced in mid-January that an additional four senior officials had been removed from their posts as a result of the breaches, according to reports.
An independent panel established following the entrance into the White House by the knife-wielding man issued a series of recommendations for the agency in December.
The panel identified widespread issues that need to be dealt with. Among its recommendations, the panel that said a new White House fence should immediately be built to stem the flow of people attempting to scale it.
However, "the problems exposed by recent events go deeper than a new fence can fix," the panel wrote in its report.
The panel also recommended that more agents be hired and that they be required to engage in regular training to keep their skills sharp.