After scaling the White House fence, Joseph Caputo, 22, was detained by Secret Service agents while President Obama and his family were inside sitting down to dinner, the New York Daily News reports.
Victoria Pena, who lives in Houston, witnessed the incident, and said that the man was standing among other people visiting the White House compound when he rushed toward the fence carrying what looked like a binder, Mashable reports.
“I just heard him take a big, deep breath and whisper to himself, ‘All right, let’s do this’ and he took off,” she said. “It was chaotic. Everyone around us was yelling and kids were crying. It was pretty unexpected.”
She added that security personnel and guard dogs rushed towards the man as he lay on the grass awaiting them.
Caputo is currently facing criminal charges, dcist reports. Officials are trying to determine how Caputo made it past “pencil-point” spikes that were added to the White House perimeter earlier this year, in an effort to dissuade intruders.
Two photojournalists for CNN also witnessed the incident, and say the man was carrying an envelope. He wore a blue shirt and white pants and was wrapped in an American flag, CNN reports. They also said that when the officers detained him, their guns were drawn and they were accompanied by K-9 units.
Caputo is allegedly the third person this year to scale a fence and wind up on White House property. The majority of jumpers are caught quickly, but in one case a 42-year-old Iraq war veteran ran across the main floor past a stairway that leads to the Obama’s residence prior to being subdued by Secret Service agents in the East Room.
Caputo was staying with friends in Virginia and left them a note, the New York Daily News reports. In the note he said he wanted to die on Nov. 26, according to court documents. Caputo also left an audio message for his mother and had prepared a will.
“Death is a natural part of life,” his note read. “Rejoice for those around us who transform into the Force,” alluding to a power that’s used in the “Star Wars” films.
Caputo, a Connecticut resident, appeared in court Friday and was charged with one count of illegal entry onto restricted ground. He faces up to one year in prison.
He suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, and will undergo a psychiatric exam. It’s something that he thought would hold him back if people knew he had it, he told a local newspaper in 2011.
“I don’t like to be held back, I like to push forward,” he said.
In the days leading up to his climbing the fence, Caputo let his disdain for the U.S. government be known on the social media, the New York Daily News reports.
On Thanksgiving morning he shared numerous images on Facebook and wrote that he wanted the world to know that the U.S. government doesn’t represent the will of the American people. Arriving in Washington earlier this week, he posted “J.C. Goes to Washington” on Facebook.
On the day before he jumped the fence, Caputo emphasized his distaste for government leaders in a post he shared on Facebook.
“Civil disobedience is not our problem,” Caputo wrote, quoting the noted social activist Howard Zinn. “Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
Notably, he also shared a “We Are Change” photo regarding Syria which stated that ISIS was a creation between the CIA, the MOSSAD and the U.K. to instill fear in the global public in order to forcibly gain public support via fear-mongering in order to invade Syria, the New York Daily News reports.
According to CNN, the White House issued an official “all clear” two hours after the incident began, but the north and south fence lines remained temporarily closed Thursday evening.