WASHINGTON – The Secret Service has detained a man for trying to fly a drone near the White House Thursday afternoon.
The White House was locked down for less than an hour as a result.
On Friday, the U.S. Park Police identified the man as Ryan McDonald, 39, of Vacaville, California. He is cooperating with authorities, was cited and issued a date to appear in court.
Law enforcement officials tell WTOP that McDonald launched the drone equipped with a small camera from Lafayette Park with the intention of taking landscape photos of the White House. He said that he didn’t know that the use of drones over the White House was prohibited.
He was using a tablet computer to control the drone, which rose to about 100 feet above the park, where he was taken seem by and taken into custody by uniformed Secret Service officers about 1:10 p.m.
McDonald is now in custody of the U.S. Park Police because Lafayette Park is a national park.
No signs at the park warn visitors that the use of drones is prohibited. Both the park and the White House fall under a no-fly zone.
The drone was less than 2-feet by 1-foot in size, similar to the drone that crashed onto the White House lawn in January. The operator of that drone, who was a U.S. government employee, told investigators that he had borrowed it and lost control of the device. He thought it would crash along the National Mall once the batteries had drained.
The U.S. attorney’s office decided not to press charges. But the drone’s arrival renewed questions about security at the White House amid concerns about fence-jumpers and about the leadership and integrity of the Secret Service, charged with protecting the president and the executive mansion compound.
This week a senior Secret Service agent announced he would retire in advance of the release of an inspector general’s report that found Marc Connolly and George Ogilvie were likely impaired by alcohol when they drove a government vehicle through a secure area of the White House in March.
The report found that the two men had spent five hours at a bar during and after a retirement party.
WTOP national security correspondent J.J. Green contributed to this report.
