The two United States Secret Service agents who allegedly hit a White House security barricade while driving under the influence reportedly interrupted an active bomb investigation and actually might have driven over the package that was believed to be the explosive, according to The Washington Post.
The Post, citing “current and former government officials familiar with the incident,” reported on the new details of the incident Thursday, a day after first reporting that the two Secret Service agents, including one who is a top member of President Barack Obama’s security detail, allegedly crashed a car into White House security barricades.
The incident started at 10:25 p.m. on March 4 when a Pennsylvania woman jumped out of her car at the White House’s southeast entrance and threw a package at the nearest security post. The woman yelled “it’s a bomb,” according to a police report cited by the Post. The area was quickly secured and a bomb team called to check the package. Shortly before 11, the two Secret Service agents, who were coming back from a work party in Chinatown, drove a car through the scene where the package was being investigated, crashing into a barricade. The car wasn’t damaged, according to a Secret Service official.
Secret Service agents that were on duty suspected the two off-duty Secret Service agents were drunk, the Post said, and wanted to arrest them, but a senior supervisor just told them to go home. The woman who threw the package had driven away in her car by then, but police were able to catch her license-plate number.
At 11:45 p.m. the bomb team determined that the package was not an explosive. It was a book. The woman was found two day later and questioned about the incident.
The Post reported that the Secret Service agents were Mark Connolly and George Ogilvie.
