10 Times White House Security Was Breached
For one of the most secure locations on the planet, the White House sure does get breached a lot. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be looking at the most egregious instances in which intruders slipped past security and managed to gain access into the White House.
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00:00The gate crashes.
00:01Yeah.
00:02By now, you must know.
00:04It's really a shame that I had to go through a whole 60-minute interview without talking about the gate crash.
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:10And today we're looking at the most egregious instances in which intruders slipped past security
00:15and managed to gain access into the White House.
00:17It all happened after someone shot an AK-47 from outside the gates,
00:22and the bullet lodged in the bulletproof glass.
00:26Robert K. Preston.
00:28The aircraft was at the Washington Monument and looked as though he was going to land
00:33after hovering there for about a minute and a half.
00:36Today, the airspace around the White House is heavily guarded.
00:39But back in 1974, that security was far less stringent.
00:43This lapse allowed 20-year-old Army private Robert K. Preston
00:47to land a stolen helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House with little resistance.
00:51Preston, who had joined the Army to become a pilot,
00:54failed his helicopter training and grew disgruntled.
00:57From my indications, his intentions was to fly the aircraft directly into the White House.
01:02Determined to prove his abilities, he stole a helicopter on February 17, 1974
01:08and flew to Washington, D.C., where he landed on the White House lawn.
01:11Although Secret Service agents opened fire, Preston suffered only minor injuries
01:16and even ran towards the White House before being tackled and arrested.
01:19He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,400.
01:23Did you have any idea you could fly a helicopter?
01:26We subsequently found out that Private Preston had attended but not graduated
01:32from the helicopter pilot school at Fort Walters, Texas.
01:36Chester Plummer.
01:37The 1970s were a challenging period for decorated Army veteran Chester Plummer.
01:42His marriage ended in divorce and a subsequent relationship also fell apart.
01:46These personal struggles led to several impulsive actions,
01:49including an assault incident involving his father, who pressed charges against him.
01:53Everything came to a head on July 25, 1976, when Plummer jumped the White House fence
01:59around 9.30 p.m., carrying a three-foot metal pipe.
02:02As he approached the building, a security guard shot him,
02:06and he was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
02:08To this day, his motives remain unknown, although people who knew him suggested
02:13he harbored no ill feelings towards President Gerald Ford
02:16and may have just been seeking a way to end his life.
02:19Anthony Henry.
02:20The man in the white karate outfit had jumped the White House fence
02:24with his knife hidden inside a Bible and used it to keep officers at bay.
02:29We all have our grievances with the government,
02:31which we typically vent about on social media, but no such thing existed in 1978.
02:36So 35-year-old Anthony Henry decided to take his message directly to the president.
02:41Henry apparently didn't like the phrase,
02:43in God we trust on the U.S. currency and wanted it removed.
02:46On October 4, barefoot and dressed in white karate garb,
02:49he scaled the White House fence.
02:51He was quickly surrounded by security,
02:53but managed to slash two officers with a knife before being arrested.
02:57Henry was charged with two counts of assault on a police officer
03:00and one count of unlawful entry.
03:02Within five minutes, though, reinforcements arrived,
03:04and the guards made their move.
03:06His concerns were never heard,
03:08and the phrase remains on American currency to this day.
03:11Frank Eugene Corder.
03:13Good morning, everyone.
03:14An extraordinary breach of security.
03:16Early this morning, a plane, a small plane,
03:19crashing on the south lawn of the White House.
03:21Although security in the White House airspace was beefed up
03:24after the 1974 helicopter incident,
03:26a similar breach occurred two decades later.
03:29This time, the pilot was 38-year-old Army veteran Frank Eugene Corder.
03:33By 1994, Corder's life had taken a steep downturn.
03:37He had been convicted of drug charges,
03:39and his third marriage had just ended.
03:41Depressed and heavily intoxicated,
03:43Corder stole a small airplane on the night of September 11, 1994,
03:48and flew it toward the White House.
03:50The president was not at home when this happened,
03:52but he was supposed to be in a bedroom window
03:54not far from where the plane came to arrest.
03:57In his impaired state,
03:58Corder crashed the plane into the south lawn
04:00while attempting to land and was killed on impact.
04:03It appears his intention was to end his life
04:05and gain attention in the process.
04:07All I can say, it was like a smooth glide.
04:11You know, like you have a glider,
04:13and it was kind of like gliding like that.
04:15The engines were off?
04:17Yeah, I didn't hear, I didn't hear no engine.
04:31Less than two months after the incident involving Frank Eugene Corder,
04:34a man named Francisco Martin Duran
04:36made a daring attempt to assassinate President Bill Clinton.
04:39Like Corder, Duran had served in the Army
04:42but was discharged following a conviction for aggravated assault.
04:45On October 29, 1994, armed with a semi-automatic rifle,
04:50Duran went to the White House intending to kill Clinton.
04:53The president and his family were never in any danger,
04:57and the president was upstairs in the residence
04:59watching a football game at the time.
05:01After mistaking a group of men on the lawn for the president,
05:04Duran opened fire, shooting 29 rounds at the White House.
05:08He was quickly tackled by three passers-by
05:11and held down until Secret Service agents arrived.
05:14Duran received a 40-year prison sentence
05:16for attempting to kill the president.
05:18He is expected to be released in 2029.
05:21If he had got reloaded, I think he would have probably
05:25shot the people that were standing on the sidewalk.
05:28Robert Pickett.
05:29This morning, a 47-year-old man was shot by the Secret Service
05:33after brandishing a gun outside the southwest gate of the White House.
05:37On February 7, 2001, former IRS accountant Robert Pickett
05:41showed up at the White House with a loaded gun.
05:44He allegedly fired several shots,
05:46triggering a tense 10-minute standoff with police,
05:49who repeatedly urged him to drop the weapon.
05:51The standoff only ended when an officer shot him in the knee.
05:54It appears Pickett, who had a history of mental illness,
05:57had been dismissed from the IRS in the late 1980s,
06:00which made him consider ending his life.
06:02Officers believe he intended to provoke police
06:04into fatally shooting him, but that ultimately failed.
06:07Instead, Pickett was arrested and later pleaded guilty
06:10to violating a local weapons law.
06:12He also entered an Alford plea
06:14on the charge of assaulting a federal officer.
06:17Tarek and Mikhail Salahi.
06:18The gate crashes.
06:19Yeah.
06:21By now, you must know.
06:22It's really a shame that I had to go through
06:24a whole 60-minute interview without talking about the gate crashes.
06:28You've probably watched a movie where an uninvited guest
06:31sneaks into an exclusive event and wondered,
06:33could that happen in real life?
06:35Well, apparently it can.
06:36Just ask Tarek and Mikhail Salahi.
06:38Back in November 2009, the then-married couple
06:41was filming for their reality show The Real Housewives of D.C.
06:44when they managed to bypass two security checkpoints
06:47and enter the White House.
06:48I think that what I know is what everybody knows,
06:51which is that these people should not have gotten through the gate.
06:55A mistake was made at the checkpoint to let them through.
06:59There, they attended a state dinner
07:01for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
07:03and even took pictures with President Barack Obama.
07:06The Secret Service didn't realize there had been a security breach
07:09until the Salahis posted those pictures on Facebook.
07:12While they weren't charged with any crimes,
07:14the negative publicity led to their reality show
07:16getting canceled after just one season.
07:18Were you unhappy with your social secretary?
07:20I was unhappy with everybody who was involved in the process
07:24because obviously, although I chafe at being in the bubble,
07:30I also want to make sure my family's safe.
07:33Oscar Ramiro Ortega Hernandez.
07:35This is the scene at the White House
07:38where they are saying the hidden security system
07:40was put to the test and it worked.
07:43It all happened after someone shot an AK-47 from outside the gates
07:48and the bullet lodged in the bulletproof glass.
07:51On November 11, 2011, 21-year-old Oscar Ramiro Ortega Hernandez
07:56parked his car across from the White House
07:58and fired at least eight rounds at the building.
08:00Ortega Hernandez, who believed President Obama was the Antichrist,
08:04had become increasingly fearful of an impending apocalypse
08:07and decided he needed to stop him.
08:09Diane, it's been nearly two decades since anyone shot at the White House.
08:13So you can imagine it's been a tense few days.
08:16Fortunately, neither the President nor the First Lady
08:19were in the White House at the time.
08:20The Secret Service initially mistook the gunfire
08:22for construction noise from a nearby site
08:24and didn't realize bullets had struck the White House until four days later.
08:28Ortega Hernandez fled the scene after the shooting,
08:31but he was apprehended in a Pennsylvania hotel on November 16
08:34and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
08:37Mr. Ortega Hernandez was apprehended
08:41at the Hampton Inn in Whitetownship
08:43approximately 12.20 this afternoon.
08:46Omar Gonzalez.
08:48The Secret Service is launching a full review of its procedures
08:51after a pair of security breaches.
08:53The New York Times reports officials are already considering
08:56checkpoints several blocks away to screen tourists.
08:59Despite the White House fence being fortified with spikes,
09:02several people have managed to scale it over the years.
09:04In 2014, Iraq War veteran Omar Gonzalez became one of them.
09:09Gonzalez dealt with PTSD
09:11and had grown increasingly paranoid in the months prior.
09:14On September 19th, he jumped the fence and ran into the White House,
09:18making it all the way to the East Room before being apprehended.
09:21Well, I think that senior Secret Service officials
09:24are pretty disappointed in what happened
09:26and they clearly know that there's a problem here.
09:28They say, look, we don't have the resources to put an officer every five feet.
09:33A search revealed a three-and-a-half-inch knife in his pocket.
09:36Gonzalez later explained that he believed the, quote,
09:38atmosphere was collapsing
09:40and wanted to warn President Obama to inform the public.
09:43The president and his family were not around when the incident occurred.
09:46Gonzalez ultimately pleaded guilty to two felonies
09:49and received a 17-month prison sentence.
09:52But we have a plan here.
09:53We have these dogs and they should have been unmuzzled
09:56and sent immediately to stop this guy
09:58because they have a policy basically of not shooting people who don't look unarmed.
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10:18Jonathan T. Tran.
10:19What it appears happened here is that a man gained entrance
10:23to the White House security perimeter at around 11.38 Friday night
10:28and actually made quite a bit of progress into the White House perimeter.
10:33In the first White House security breach of President Donald Trump's administration,
10:3726-year-old Jonathan T. Tran jumped the fence and entered the grounds.
10:41Tran reportedly rattled the backdoor handle and even peered through a window,
10:45all without being noticed.
10:46Unlike other incidents on this list,
10:48the president was inside the White House at the time of the incident.
10:51This is a pretty familiar entrance to the White House.
10:54This is, of course, the entrance that the president would enter and exit from
10:58when he's leaving on a trip to get onto Marine One before heading to Joint Base Andrews.
11:03But it took 17 minutes before he was apprehended by Secret Service agents.
11:07He was found with two cans of mace
11:09and told the agents he was, quote, a friend of the president.
11:12Despite the security lapse being labeled, quote,
11:15a complete and utter total failure by the Congressional Oversight Chairman,
11:19Tran was only sentenced to two years of probation.
11:22He was made aware of the situation
11:25as soon as the Secret Service could provide him those details.
11:29And as we said, the president was not harmed.
11:31So this individual is under arrest right now.
11:34Which of these White House security fails shocked you the most?
11:37Let us know in the comments below.
11:38Everyone's happy that no one got hurt.
11:40But Diane, it was an extremely dangerous situation.
11:43Did you enjoy this video?
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