A woman was immediately arrested when she tried to scale the fence after reportedly jumping over a barricade in front of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue NW last Friday. The incident occurred around 7 in the evening.
According to a news report by the UPI, Brian Leary, spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said that the woman had jumped the barricade which also somewhat served as a "bike rack." The woman, however, did not make it onto the White House grounds, the authorities said.
The woman is unidentified and is now under custody, with charges of unlawful entry. The White House was also put on lock down for about an hour after the incident.
The U.S. Secret Service, the agency tasked to protect the U.S. President and other U.S. leaders, had installed steel spikes on top of the fence in early July.
On May 8th, the UPI covered the news on the installation of the steel spikes by the Secret Service. It was reported that the spikes were 7 1/4 -inch tall and included half-inch steel pencil-point tips. The spikes are to stick out several inches to make an angle, and will also function as the second layer of spikes on the existing iron fence top.
Tom Dougherty, the Secret Service's chief strategy officer, commented on the many times intruders had already breached the fence. "The current fence is a measure that was useful for a bygone era," Dougherty said.
Security around the White House have been upped after the Oklahoma City bombing, and even more so after the 9/11 attacks, twenty years ago. Also, just last September, a man named Omar Gonzalez had jumped the fence carrying a knife, and had even gone as far as the reception parlor of the White House.
For the record, the "bike rack" incident was the latest attempt to breach the White House fence.
