The military base in Maryland that the president and vice president use to travel to and from Washington was placed on lockdown Sunday night when two people, at least one of whom was armed, bypassed a security checkpoint around the time Vice President Kamala Harris. and four cabinet members landed there, military officials said.
The two people drove through the checkpoint at the main entrance and “disobeyed orders from security personnel,” Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland, said in a statement Sunday night.
Authorities at the base, in Washington’s Maryland suburbs, stopped the intruders’ vehicle “barriers,” but they fled, the statement said. One of them was arrested, but the other was wanted late Sunday evening.
“We can confirm that the person arrested had a weapon, but no shots were fired,” the base said in the statement. Authorities have not identified the person who was arrested.
Ms. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were flown safely from the base in Marine Two, the vice presidential helicopter, though it was unclear whether they left before or after learning of the lockdown, according to reporters who just came to Selma, Ala. , with Mrs. Harris.
Police officers searched the grounds and vehicles at the scene, including a shuttle containing the reporters.
Traffic leaving the base was halted while police enforced the lockdown, creating a long line extending from a main entrance. Police vehicles and helicopters circled the base.
Ms Harris, Mr Emhoff and the four cabinet members — Education Minister Miguel Cardona; Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge; and Michael S. Regan, the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, had just flown to base on Air Force Two, according to reporters who had traveled with them.
The Vice President had traveled in the morning to… commemorate the 57th anniversary of the civil rights march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
In February 2021, an intruder at the base boarded a plane commonly used by senior government officials and military leaders. The breach prompted authorities to order a security review at air bases around the world.
A similar lockdown at the base occurred in 2016 after reports emerged that an active gunman killed then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Ohio. It came on the same day that the base had planned to hold an active target practice. A shooter’s messages turned out to be false.
