A 25-year-old man was arrested earlier Sunday afternoon after he nearly made it into the White House with the mission to assassinate President Donald Trump . According to Business Insider , Roger Hedgpeth was taken into custody by Secret Service agents on a charge of making threats to do bodily harm, per the Metropolitan Police Department.
Questions have already been raised about Hedgpeth’s mental state, as he reportedly approached a Secret Service officer who was outside patrolling the White House and openly stated his intentions to “assassinate” the president.
“I have a knife to do it with,” Hedgpeth said, according to police reports of the incident. Officers quickly managed to find the weapon he referenced and confiscated the 3.5-inch blade that had been stored on his left hip.
In addition, Hedgpeth had a pistol holster on his right hip, though authorities said that it was empty and without a firearm. Authorities also impounded his vehicle.
Though Hedgpeth was taken into custody, he is currently undergoing a mental health evaluation at a nearby hospital.
According to The Washington Post , the police report described Hedgpeth as a “critically missing/endangered person as well as a mental health consumer.”
It is not known how the man, a Florida native, had made his way to Washington D.C., and it was similarly unclear whether he would be retaining counsel in light of his arrest. Neither Hedgpeth nor a lawyer or member of his family has made any comment on the matter.
This is not the first time during Trump’s presidency that there have been potentially dangerous intruders; in fact, there have been enough incidents to warrant a number of new security — including heightening the White House by five feet.
One of the most serious incidents was in March 2017, when a California man armed with a mace scaled the fence and made his way to just outside the White House. Trump was in residence at the time of the intrusion.
A year and a half later, a second individual managed to climb over the security barriers protecting the White House, and a third incident occurred in November 2019 when a man was arrested after trying to drive through the vehicle checkpoint.
Finally, just one week ago, an SUV similarly tried to make its way past security checkpoints, but this time at President Trump’s Palm Beach home of Mar-a-Lago. As was previously covered by The Inquisitr , law enforcement was forced to fire on the vehicle. As a result, it fled, resulting in a car chase that ended with the help of police helicopters.
