Driver faces a number of costs together with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict hurt on a president, assault with lethal weapon.
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 Home.
The field truck’s driver smashed into the barrier close to the north facet of Lafayette Sq. on Monday at about 10pm (02:00 GMT Tuesday), Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi mentioned in a press release. He was recognized as 19-year-old Sai Varshith Kandula, of Chesterfield, a St Louis suburb.
Nobody was injured within the crash.
A witness, Chris Zaboji, mentioned the driving force smashed into the barrier no less than twice. Zaboji, a 25-year-old pilot who lives in Washington, was ending a run shut by Lafayette Sq. when he heard the loud crash of the U-Haul truck hitting the barrier. He mentioned he took out his cellphone 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 once more, I made a decision I wished to get out of there,” he mentioned.
Officers from the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Division searched the truck after the crash. Video posted by WUSA-TV reveals a police officer on the scene choosing up and inventorying a number of items of proof from the truck, together with a Nazi flag.
Primarily based on a preliminary investigation, investigators consider the driving force “could have deliberately struck the safety obstacles at Lafayette Sq.”, Guglielmi mentioned. Authorities supplied no extra particulars concerning the attainable motive.
The US Park Police mentioned Kandula was arrested on a number of costs, together with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict hurt on a president, vp 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 Related Press to succeed in kinfolk who might converse on his behalf on Tuesday weren’t instantly profitable.
Lafayette Sq., which affords maybe the perfect view of the White Home accessible to the general public, has lengthy been one of many nation’s most distinguished venues for demonstrations. The park was closed for almost a yr after federal authorities fenced off the world on the peak of nationwide protests towards policing techniques following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but it surely reopened in Could 2021
U-Haul is a transferring truck, trailer and self-storage rental firm primarily based in Phoenix.
