An intruder was able to climb a fence and enter the White House in September because of a succession of “performance, organizational, technical” and other failures by the US Secret Service, according to a damning review of the incident by the US Department of Homeland Security.
The review found that the Secret Service’s alarm systems and radios failed to function properly, and that many of the responding officers did not see the intruder as he climbed over the fence, delaying their response.
However, the review found that Omar Gonzalez, the man charged in the incident, could have been stopped by a Secret Service officer who was stationed on the North Lawn with an attack dog, but the officer did not realize that an intruder had made it over the fence because he was sitting in his van talking on his personal mobile phone.
The officer did not have his radio earpiece in and had left the second radio he was supposed to have in his locker.
It was only after he saw another officer running toward Gonzalez that he was alerted to the incident.
At that point, the officer gave the dog the command to attack, but the dog had not had a chance to “lock onto” the intruder “and may not have seen” him at all, the review said.
Gonzalez continued into the White House.
The review has not been made public, but members of the US Congress were briefed on it on Thursday. An executive summary was obtained by the New York Times.
The review of the Sept. 19 incident is part of a much broader investigation of the Secret Service being conducted by Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
That investigation is focused on other incidents in which the White House fence was scaled and how security at the White House could be improved.
Mayorkas is also expected to provide recommendations on who should succeed Julia Pierson as the Secret Service’s next director. Pierson resigned after the September incident amid criticism over other security lapses by the agency.
In addition to faulting the Secret Service for its handling of the incident, the review also found that the agency mishandled its investigation of Gonzalez in the months before he succeeded in entering the White House.
The review also faulted the Secret Service for not adequately training its officers because of staffing shortages.
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