A man drove a truck into security barriers near the White House Monday night according to The New York Times.
The driver has been identified as Sai Varshith Kandula, a 19-year-old from Chesterfield, Missouri, U.S. Park Police said Tuesday morning. He was arrested on multiple charges, including threatening to kill or harm a president, vice president or family member, officials said.
The Secret Service said the incident, which occurred on the north side of Lafayette Square about a block from the White House, may have been intentional. A Secret Service spokesman said a Nazi flag was found in the truck.
Authorities in Washington, D.C., detained the driver of a box truck that crashed into security barriers adjacent to the White House grounds https://t.co/Jfc4Pz35Z0 pic.twitter.com/D8DG0LSeFg
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 23, 2023
The white U-Haul box truck hit the barrier just before 10 p.m. ET. The man driving the truck was arrested.
“There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel and the cause and manner of the crash remain under investigation,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service chief of communications, said in a statement Monday night.
A bomb-detecting robot searched the area around the truck.
The perimeter of the White House has been fortified in recent years after several instances where either the grounds or the White House itself were breached, the Times reported.
Last month, a toddler squeezed through the fence on the north side of the complex.
