An Intruder Was Allowed To Roam The White House Grounds Because Of A Disabled Alarm

This doesn’t inspire much confidence.

According to this, some guy jumped the fence around the White House and wandered around the grounds for 17 minutes without anyone realizing he was there. He only was caught after he told security that he had an appointment.

After the guy was detained, Secret Service realized that someone (presumably a Secret Service agent) had disabled the fence alarm in the area where the man had jumped the fence.

The fence-jumper who wandered around the White House complex for 17 minutes was able to elude the Secret Service in part because the agency has taken down alarm sensors along an area of one fence that he scaled, according to two sources familiar with details of the incident.

The intruder, identified as Jonathan Tran, was able to jump over three different fences, including at least one between the Treasury Department and the east area of the White House complex shortly before midnight March 10.

Tran was able to scale that particular area of the fence without setting off alarms because they had been removed, leading to confusion among officers about his whereabouts and whether an intruder was inside the White House complex, the sources told the Examiner.

Sources gave several excuses for the alarms being disabled – sometimes birds or squirrels set them off, they were being used elsewhere, they weren’t working properly and replacements hadn’t come in yet. Et cetera, et cetera.

Guys – this isn’t the faulty smoke alarm in your apartment that goes off when you sneeze in its general direction. These are alarms meant to protect the FREAKING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. I would say the same thing if Obama was still in office. What in the WORLD are you doing disabling the alarms for ANY reason?

You’d think the Secret Service would take their job of protecting POTUS and company more seriously than this.