As the official residence of the top official of the United States, the White House is one of the places in the U.S. where trespassers and burglars have the least chances of going through. Secret Service agents are always on the lookout for suspicious activities, persons and things. Apparently, however, breaching the security of the White House does not require a genius working with a highly organized group of intruders.
On Thursday evening, President Barack Obama was to about to make a public speech on Iraq when this was interrupted due to a security breach on the White House's North Lawn. It turned out that a toddler managed to squeeze through the fence and eventually made it to the lawn. The "security breach" triggered security officers to lock down the White House and forcing no other than the President as well as the press corps and all those waiting for the Iraq update to wait.
Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said that the toddler managed to wiggle his way through the secure area about 8:10 in the evening just as reporters were waiting for the President's statement. The journalists even saw security officers racing across the North Lawn apparently to apprehend the tiny intruder, who was eventually returned to his parents.
If it were somebody older, the trespasser might have been arrested and slapped with charges just as in the case of a man, who in May this year, stripped himself naked and fought with the police when he was not allowed entry to the White House and another who drove his jeep into the security gates of the President's official residence in 2013.
Neither the tyke nor his parents were detained for questioning. The child, after all, is too young to even speak about his misdeed. Like many kids of his age, the toddler was merely given a timeout as punishment for breaching the security of the White House.
"We were going to wait until he learned to talk to question him, but in lieu of that he got a timeout and was sent on way with parents," Donovan said.
It appears that babies, toddlers and their stuff are an arising concern in Washington. On Friday morning, the U.S. Capitol's visitor center was closed down for a brief moment after officers found a stroller outside. The spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police later said that the stroller is non-hazardous.
