A Secret Service officer on patrol near the White House just before midnight Thursday noticed a blue Ford F-150 parked on Constitution Avenue. The officer knocked on the window and asked the man inside if he was OK and whether he had weapons. He allegedly nodded yes and made a finger-gun gesture, according to a court affidavit, ABC News reported.
Inside, officers found a MAC-10 machine pistol, a Glock 43x pistol, an AR-15 rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. The truck had been reported stolen. The man, identified as Ronny Guanipa-Chrinos, a Venezuelan national, told officers he “heard voices in his head telling him to come to Washington, D.C. and kill President Trump,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
What is he charged with?
Local charges so far, not a federal threat charge. The criminal complaint in D.C. Superior Court lists unauthorized use of a vehicle, receiving stolen property, carrying a pistol without a license, carrying a rifle without a license and other firearms counts. He made his first court appearance Friday and is being held without bond, according to court records cited by ABC.
There’s a detail worth noting. The “voices” statement comes from DHS. ABC reported that the affidavit filed in court doesn’t include it. In the affidavit, translated from Spanish, he’s quoted saying, “I have the gun because they tried to kill me with it, and I had to take it away from them; it’s in the brown bag.” DHS says he’s undocumented and entered the U.S. through Texas in 2024. His age hasn’t been reported, and it’s not clear whether Trump was at the White House at the time.
How often does this happen at the White House?
More than it used to, according to the Secret Service. “This incident reflects the heightened threat environment in which we operate, as well as the continued number of armed individuals who are drawn to the White House complex,” Director Sean Curran said in a statement TMZ published. “We are alarmed by the increase in threat cases that continue to arise.”
This year alone, a gunman was shot and killed by the Secret Service near the White House in May, and there was a shooting near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April. Threats have reached Congress too: last month a letter with white powder was opened at Rep. Ritchie Torres’ Bronx office.
The BeezLoop Take
The system worked here. An officer noticed something off, asked a direct question, and three guns came off the street before anyone got hurt. That deserves to be said plainly.
The rest deserves caution. A man who says he hears voices, sitting in a stolen truck with a machine pistol, is a mental health story and a gun story as much as an immigration story, and DHS leading with his nationality while the court papers leave out its most dramatic quote is a reason to wait for the full record.
The open question: how did a man in apparent crisis end up with a MAC-10 and an AR-15, and will federal prosecutors step in with a threat charge?
Sources: ABC News · TMZ · NBC News (video)
