Another White House Intruder Seized

Three days after an intruder was shot on White House grounds, an unarmed man climbed over the mansion’s 10-foot fence Friday and was seized by Secret Service agents.

The climber, Andrew Meig Jopling, 24, said he was born in Annapolis, Md., but has no fixed address. He was charged with unlawful entry.

Secret Service spokesman Mike Tarr said Jopling scaled the fence along East Executive Avenue directly in front of the East Wing entrance to the White House.

“He jumped over the fence and was immediately apprehended,” Tarr said.

Jopling crossed the fence in an area where tourists were lined up for White House tours and where numerous agents are normally positioned. He was questioned at a gatehouse on the White House grounds for two hours before being transferred to the city’s central lockup.

Dressed in a T-shirt and denim shorts, his reddish hair cropped short, Jopling was silent as he was taken away in handcuffs in a police van.

White House “fence-jumpers” have become an almost routine phenomenon in recent years.

A White House security report released earlier this month said most have been pranksters, peaceful protesters or harmless, mentally ill individuals. Twenty-three people were taken into custody between 1989 and November, 1994, after climbing the iron fence around the White House grounds.

On Tuesday night, Leland William Modjeski, a 37-year-old suburban Virginia man climbed the fence shortly after President Clinton stepped out of his limousine and entered the South Portico.

Carrying an unloaded revolver, Modjeski rushed toward the rear of the mansion, grappled with a Secret Service agent and was shot in the arm by a second agent. Modjeski has been charged with felony assault and weapons violations.