
A Secret Service police officer patrols in front of the White House on Oct. 23, 2014. The waist-high auxiliary barrier was put in place in September. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
A man was arrested Sunday outside the White House after he tried to climb a barrier set up in front of the main fence around the grounds, the Secret Service said.
The man did not get over the barrier, which is about waist high and was put in place after an incident in September in which an intruder climbed the fence and eventually got inside the White House.
Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary said the man tried to climb the temporary barrier about 2:15 p.m. on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the grounds.
He was taken into custody by uniformed officers of the Secret Service and charged with unlawful entry, Leary said. He was turned over to D.C. police.
No information was immediately available about the man or any motive he may have had. Leary said an effort would be made to speak with him.
The auxiliary barrier is composed of a series of interlocking metal sections about eight feet long and about three and a half feet or four feet high. Each section, which includes a series of vertical bars, looks like a bicycle rack.
It was not clear whether any previous arrests had been made in connection with attempts to scale the auxiliary barrier.
Last year’s much-publicized fence climbing incident helped lead to a management shake-up in the Secret Service. In that incident, a man climbed the main fence, sprinted across the lawn and penetrated deep into the White House before being stopped.
The auxiliary barrier was put in place on the Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk within days. There have been no reports of anyone scaling the main fence since then.