A man was in custody Thursday in Washington after jumping over a White House fence while the first family was inside celebrating Thanksgiving.
Draped in an American flag, Joseph Caputo scaled a fence on the North Lawn and was immediately apprehended, the Secret Service said.
It did not provide Caputo’s age or hometown, or any reason for the jumper’s actions.
Officials were trying to determine how the man made it past new “pencil point” spikes added to the White House perimeter this year to deter intruders.
The north and south fence lines at the White House were temporarily closed. In the hours after the incident, numerous armed security personnel were seen along the streets and sidewalks outside the executive mansion.
Caputo was at least the third person in 2015 to scale a fence and make it onto White House property.
While most fence-jumpers are quickly captured, in September 2014 an Iraq War veteran ran across the lawn, through the main door and past a stairway that leads up to the first family's residence before he was subdued by Secret Service agents in the East Room.
