Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Here’s a surefire way to get busted for robbery: leave the scene of the crime and hop over the White House fence.
The White House was locked down briefly Tuesday after a man jumped the fence alongside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, a White House facility where presidential staffers work. Secret Service spokesman Robert Hoback said an initial investigation suggested that the man was fleeing a robbery just across the street.
Secret Service officers quickly detained the man, who hasn’t been identified publicly, but not before he suffered a cut to his finger. Doug Buchanan, a spokesman for the fire department in Washington, said emergency workers responded to help transport the man to a local hospital under police supervision to treat injuries to his hand.
At the White House, canine teams and armed Secret Service agents gathered on the North Lawn of the White House as the area around the complex was cleared. Reporters working inside the White House were kept inside by automatically locking doors.
The lockdown was lifted after a brief period, and visitors and staffers could be seen walking about the complex. President Barack Obama was at the White House during the incident.
The Secret Service has worked to increase security along the White House fence amid a string of fence-jumping incidents. In 2014, a man who hopped the fence made it deep inside the White House before officers were able to apprehend him.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press