(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The Secret Service has identified the suspect who was shot by agents outside the White House on Sunday morning after allegedly brandishing a weapon.
The suspect, 27-year-old Andrew Dawson, was taken to a nearby hospital and remains alive, though his overall condition is unknown, the New York Post reported.
Dawson allegedly drove from Indiana to D.C. with the intent to commit “suicide by cop,” meaning he sought to provoke officers into killing him, according to sources cited by the Post.
The Post reported Dawson was allegedly armed with both a knife and a gun when approached by federal agents. Law enforcement had been alerted earlier that day of a “suicidal” individual traveling from Indiana to Washington, D.C.
The shooting occurred near 17th and F Streets, just outside the White House.
It is unclear whether Dawson had any intent to harm any White House officials or USSS agents, as he has not been charged with any crimes as of Monday evening.
His 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 Sunday 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.
The Sunday incident followed just days after Trump demanded answers from federal investigators about his two would-be assassins. Trump implied that information had been withheld because of the Biden administration.
