Police Wound Attacker in Front of White House

A homeless man brandishing a nine-inch knife was shot by a U.S. Park Police officer in front of the White House Tuesday, marking the third shooting outside the presidential residence in two months.

Marcelino Corniel, 33, a Southern California native who had been camped in adjacent Lafayette Park, was shot in the chest and leg after charging across Pennsylvania Avenue about 9 a.m. and menacing a cordon of U.S. Park Police officers, authorities said. Police saw no indication that Corniel was trying to hurt President Clinton, who was at work in the Oval Office at the time.

Corniel, who remained in very critical condition after surgery Tuesday night, will be charged with assaulting a police officer, the FBI said.

Other people camping in Lafayette Park, which is home to dozens of protesters and drifters, said that Corniel apparently had been angered Tuesday morning by patrolmen who routinely came by to wake them. Corniel jumped out from beneath a soiled blanket, shouting: “I’m going to get you!”

He dashed across the street toward the White House, holding his knife in front of him.

A U.S. Park Police officer called for assistance and grappled with Corniel, whose knife was taped to his left hand. As other officers gathered, they repeatedly demanded that Corniel drop the weapon.

With at least three other officers standing in a semicircle about 10 feet from him, a policeman approached Corniel and demanded again that he drop the knife. Television videotape of the incident shows that Corniel was moving only slightly and not trying to strike the officers at the moment he was shot.

But a Park Police spokesman insisted that Corniel’s behavior threatened the officers’ lives and that the shooting was justified. The homeless man “still had the knife,” said Maj. Robert Hines of the U.S. Park Police. “He was still looking at them. He might have been trying to figure out which one to knife.”

After the shots were fired, Corniel collapsed on the sidewalk about 10 feet from the north gate of the White House. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital.

Police characterized the incident as routine urban violence but acknowledged that the string of shootings, along with the crash of a small airplane into the White House in September, produce the kind of attention that could generate copycat incidents.

“There is a contagion theory about these things,” said Eric Harnischfeger, Secret Service spokesman. “They can draw in other unbalanced individuals. That’s why we don’t want to talk about it too much.”

Corniel was ill and receiving disability payments after being burned over 80% of his body, according to police in Anaheim, his last known California address.

A spokeswoman for Torrance Memorial Medical Center said that the hospital treated a man with the same name and birth date after he suffered burns over 75% to 80% of his body in a 1992 Carson car fire. He was an in-patient from Aug. 12 to Dec. 23, 1992, said spokeswoman Laurie Lundberg, and came back to the hospital for reconstructive surgery throughout 1993. He was treated the last time in May, 1994, she said.

Corniel had been listed as a missing person in August by a sister in Anaheim after he failed to show up for scheduled surgery.

The sister “was concerned about his health,” said Lt. Vince Howard of the Anaheim police.

Other homeless people in Lafayette Park described Corniel as a usually gentle man who had been living in the park for several months intermittently. One side of his face bore extensive scars from the burn.

Other homeless people said that he seemed physically as well as mentally ill at times. He had drifted away from the park a few months ago after complaining of police harassment.

Some bystanders and callers to TV talk shows complained that officers overreacted. Hines said Washington police would independently investigate, with the officers involved routinely placed on administrative duty, Newsday reported.

Park Police, the Secret Service and District of Columbia police have all stepped up security in recent weeks because of the incidents at the White House, which appear to have no connection.

Early Saturday, an unexplained burst of gunfire left three bullets on the south side of the White House and one in the building itself. Police aren’t sure precisely where those shots were fired from, or why, and have no suspects.

A gunman sprayed the White House with 29 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon on Oct. 29. Francisco Martin Duran of Colorado has been charged with multiple crimes, including attempted assassination of the President, in that incident.

In addition, a Maryland man, Frank Corder, died when he crashed his small plane on the White House grounds Sept. 11.

Times staff writer Julie Marquis in Orange County contributed to this story.