A 23-YEAR-OLD man who climbed over the White House fence last night has been charged with felonies for assaulting two police dogs and making threats, the Secret Service said today.
Dominic Adesanya of Bel Air, Maryland, was in the custody of the US Marshals Service for previous outstanding warrants, Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said.
Adesanya has also been charged with four misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and unlawful entry.
This is the second time a person has jumped over the White House fence. This incident comes about a month after a previous White House fence jumper carrying a knife sprinted across the same lawn, ran past armed uniformed agents and entered the mansion before he was felled in the ceremonial East Room and taken into custody.
Not the first time
This is not Adesanya’s first arrest at the executive mansion.Records show he was also charged with unlawful entry at the White House complex in late July. A court document says he told an officer that a security barrier he jumped over “was easy and that the next fence to the south grounds of the White House would not be a problem as well.”
Adesanya claimed a banking family that he said owned the Federal Reserve Bank was targeting him, and he said he wanted cameras that had been placed in his home removed, according to a court document. After the arrest he was ordered to get outpatient mental health screening and return to court Sept. 9.
He was apprehended again just three days after the July arrest at the White House complex for refusing to leave the Treasury building next door and swinging his fists at officers. Court records show he was then ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device and abide by a curfew.
Arrest
Warrants for his arrest were issued after he failed to appear in court in September. An attorney representing him in those arrests did not immediately return a telephone call today.
After climbing over the fence last night, Adesanya was swiftly apprehended on the North Lawn, on Pennsylvania Avenue, by uniformed Secret Service agents and their dogs. He was unarmed.
President Barack Obama was at the White House at the time.
Video of the incident recorded by TV news cameras shows a man in white shorts on the lawn just inside the fence. The man lifts his shirt as if to show that he is unarmed, then is seen kicking and punching the two Secret Service dogs.
Dogs injured
Leary said the dogs, Hurricane and Jordan, were treated by a veterinarian for minor bruising and cleared to return to duty.
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