Man with knife & plan to 'assassinate' Trump detained outside White House

A man carrying a knife has been detained outside the White House in Washington, DC. He told the US Secret Service that he'd brought the weapon to “assassinate” Donald Trump.

The suspect himself approached a security officer who was patrolling outside the presidential residence Saturday afternoon, and told him of his plan. “I have a knife to do it with,” he said, according to a police report seen by AP.

Police identified the man as 25-year-old Roger Hedgpeth, who was arrested on charges of making threats to cause bodily harm. The man had a 3.5-inch (around 9-cm) knife on him as well as an empty pistol holster.

After the arrest, Hedgpeth was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. It turned out that he was a “critically missing/endangered person as well as a mental health consumer” from Brandon, Florida. It’s currently unclear how long he was missing and how was he able to cover the 1,500 km separating Brandon and Washington, DC.

According to his schedule, President Trump was likely inside the White House at the moment of the incident. However, he had no appearances outside the residence planned during the day.

The number of arrests outside the White House has increased since Donald Trump moved in. In 2017, a man armed with mace managed to scale the fence and make it all the way to the exterior of the US president’s residence.

In 2018, another person was detained after climbing over the security barrier outside the White House, while last year an attempt was made to drive an authorized vehicle through the security checkpoint.

The incidents prompted the decision to replace the fence around the White House with a much taller one, also equipped with ‘anti-climbing’ technology.

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