White House placed on lockdown after fence-jumper busted
The White House has been placed on lockdown after a person jumped the fence, reports say.
The US presidential residence was still on lockdown on Thursday afternoon, despite the quick capture, because the Secret Service was performing a security sweep of the area, reports said.
The incident came amid serious security concerns in the United States and Europe following the November 13 attacks in Paris that allegedly killed 130 people.
Daesh (ISIL) terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in France.
US President Barack Obama was apparently at the White House at the time of the incident, which followed recent steps by the Secret Service to improve security at the presidential mansion.
Obama said on Wednesday that there are no “specific” and “credible” terror threats against Americans as the country entered this year’s Thanksgiving holidays.
"As we go into Thanksgiving weekend, I want the American people to know is that we are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe," Obama said in a televised statement from the White House.
The US Secret Service is recovering from a series of embarrassing security breaches.
In September 2014, a US war veteran was able to reach deep into the White House with a knife before being apprehended by Secret Service agents, an unprecedented security breach in recent decades.
According to a report by the Washington Post, it took the Secret Service five days to discover that a man had shot seven bullets at the White House in 2011.
A string of security lapses and misjudgments by the Secret Service led to the resignation of the head of the agency, Julia Pierson, in October 2014.
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