(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Justice Department has reached a plea agreement with Andrew Dawson, the “suicidal” man shot by Secret Service guards near the White House in March.
The agreement, which was signed Friday and docketed on Tuesday, has Dawson pleading guilty to carrying a pistol without a license, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He was initially also charged with possessing an unregistered firearm and ammo, and with carrying a rifle. According to charging papers, law enforcement found a BB gun and a “cell phone handgun” on his person when they searched him after the shooting.
Dawson is set to be sentenced on July 28. But in the meantime, he’s out of jail. Judge Errol Arthur released him from custody Tuesday.
According to the DOJ, Dawson drove from Indiana to Washington D.C. on March 9 with the intent to commit “suicide by cop”—meaning he sought to provoke officers into killing him. Law enforcement had been alerted earlier that day of a “suicidal” individual traveling from Indiana to Washington, D.C., and a “be on the lookout order (BOLO) was issued for him by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homeland Security Division.
🚨NEW: The DOJ has struck a plea deal with the "suicidal" man shot by the Secret Service outside the White House in March. Perhaps more significantly, a DC judge has released this man from custody until his July 28 sentencing.
Meanwhile, we still don't know anything about what… https://t.co/1c5hMyOGBL pic.twitter.com/c7wjW2Ahrf
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) May 14, 2025
The shooting occurred near 17th and F Streets, just outside the White House. Dawson was taken to a nearby hospital afterwards, and was sent to DC jail after he was discharged.
It is unclear whether Dawson had any intent to harm any White House officials or Secret Service agents. The U.S. government has not provided many details about the incident.
According to charging papers against Dawson, CCTV didn’t capture the shooting “due to the camera angle.” And while there was apparently law enforcement bodycam footage of the incident, the presiding DC judge granted the DOJ’s request for a protective order to prevent that footage from going public.
Dawson’s criminal record shows an arrest in 2018 for marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia.
At the time of the incident, President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. He returned safely to the White House on Sunday evening, hours after the shooting.
The March shooting at the White House follows similar incidents in recent years.
In 2020, Trump was abruptly escorted from a briefing after a shooting broke out near the White House.
In 2016, the USSS shot a man who approached a White House checkpoint with a gun.
In 2011, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez fired several rounds at the White House and later pleaded to “one count of injury to a dwelling and placing lives in jeopardy within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, as well as one count of discharging a firearm during a crime of violence,” according to the FBI. He was sentenced to 25 years.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
