By LINDSAY WHITEHURST (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police have arrested a Missouri man they consider deliberately crashed a U-Haul truck right into a safety barrier at a park throughout from the White House.
The field truck’s driver smashed into the barrier close to the north facet of Lafayette Square on Monday at round 10 p.m., Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated in an announcement. He was recognized as 19-year-old Sai Varshith Kandula, of Chesterfield, a St. Louis suburb.
No one was injured within the crash.
A witness, Chris Zaboji, stated the driving force smashed into the barrier at the least twice. Zaboji, a 25-year-old pilot who lives in Washington, was ending a run shut by Lafayette Square when he heard the loud crash of the U-Haul truck hitting the barrier. He stated he took out his telephone and captured the second the truck struck the barrier once more earlier than he heard sirens approaching.
“When the van backed up and rammed it again, I decided I wanted to get out of there,” he stated.
Officers from the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department searched the truck after the crash. Video posted by WUSA-TV exhibits a police officer on the scene selecting up and inventorying a number of items of proof from the truck, together with a Nazi flag.
Based on a preliminary investigation, investigators consider the driving force “may have intentionally struck the security barriers at Lafayette Square,” Guglielmi stated. Authorities supplied no further particulars concerning the doable motive.
The U.S. Park Police stated Kandula was arrested on a number of fees, together with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict hurt on a president, vice chairman or member of their household; assault with a harmful weapon; reckless driving; destruction of federal property; and trespassing.
No lawyer was listed for Kandula in court docket data, a number of phone numbers listed beneath his surname in public data have been out of service, and efforts by The Associated Press to succeed in family who might communicate on his behalf on Tuesday weren’t instantly profitable.
Lafayette Square, which affords maybe the most effective view of the White House out there to the general public, has lengthy been one of many nation’s most outstanding venues for demonstrations. The park was closed for practically a 12 months after federal authorities fenced off the realm on the top of nationwide protests over policing following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, however it reopened in May 2021.
U-Haul is a transferring truck, trailer and self-storage rental firm primarily based in Phoenix.
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Associated Press newsgathering producer Beatrice Dupuy in New York contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”