Agents Arrest Man Found Scaling White House Fence

An unarmed man found clinging to a fence outside the White House on Christmas morning was taken into custody and questioned by the Secret Service.

President Clinton and his family were inside the White House at the time, but were never in any danger in the latest attempt to breach security at the presidential residence.

“Somebody grabbed him hanging from the fence,” a spokesman for the Secret Service said. “He was not armed and we don’t know what he was up to.”

Witnesses said the man scaled the spiked, iron fence in the rainy, 50-degree weather about 11 a.m. and was about to step over the top when he was surrounded by uniformed Secret Service police, who drew their weapons.

The Secret Service said Lolanda Bello, 19, was charged with unlawful entry and making threats after allegedly arguing with police.

The incident occurred shortly after the Clintons had returned to the White House after attending Christmas services.

The Secret Service handles about half a dozen cases of “fence-hoppers” trying to get onto the White House grounds each year, but the issue is particularly sensitive now because of a rash of recent incidents.

On Tuesday, a U.S. Park Police officer shot and killed a homeless man, when he brandished a large hunting knife in front of the White House and refused to surrender it to authorities.

Also last week, a man was arrested after claiming there was a bomb in his car; another was arrested and charged with carrying an unregistered firearm, and a man was arrested after he slipped onto the grounds through a gate.

Earlier this month, at least four bullets fired from a considerable distance reached the White House.

On Oct. 29, Francisco Martin Duran, 26, of Colorado was arrested and charged with firing more than two dozen bullets from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House.

Six weeks earlier, Frank Eugene Corder, 38, of Perry Point, Md., died when he crashed a small plane on the South Lawn of the White House.