Unauthorized vehicle tries to drive past White House checkpoint

WASHINGTON – The Secret Service said a person was in custody Thursday after the agency stopped a car trying to enter White House property. 

Secret Service spokeswoman Julia McMurray said in a statement that “at approximately 4:45 a.m. an unauthorized vehicle attempted to gain entry to the White House complex by following another vehicle that was lawfully entering at an external complex checkpoint.” 

She said the vehicle was “immediately taken into custody” by Secret Service officers and charged with unlawful entry. 

At 6:16 a.m. EST, about an hour before the announcement, the Secret Service announced road closures around the White House as agents were “responding to a suspicious vehicle.” 

Six minutes later the agency posted another tweeted that the roads remained closed and that D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers from an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit were at the scene. 

Washington police spokesman Karimah Bilal said the unit did not find any hazardous materials in the vehicle. 

President Donald Trump was at the White House at the time of the incident after returning from Texas on Wednesday night. He was tweeting about unrelated matters from his account around the time of the incident. 

Images from the White House showed uniformed men combing through what appeared to be piles of clothes beside a black Mercedes SUV, which he said was the vehicle that had tried to enter the checkpoint. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Secret Service: Driver tried pass through White House checkpoint