Operatives of the US Secret Service on Sunday morning shot at an arm-wilding man outside the White House after an “armed confrontation”.
The Service in a statement said it had earlier received a tip-off from local police about a “suicidal individual who may be travelling to Washington DC from Indiana”.
BBC learnt that the operatives approached a man that matched the description, “who brandished a firearm”, and that shots were fired. The man is now in hospital in an “unknown” condition, it said.
“As officers approached, the individual brandished a firearm and an armed confrontation ensued, during which shots were fired by our personnel,” the statement said.
The incident is now under investigation by Washington’s Metropolitan Police, which investigates all law-enforcement shootings in the District of Columbia.
President Donald Trump was however not in the White House at the time, as he is spending the weekend at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.
