Security incidents involving George W. Bush

On February 7, 2001, while Bush was in the residence area of the White House, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a Taurus .38 caliber special revolver "in the general direction" of the White House. He was shot in the knee by a United States Secret Service agent and arrested.

Pickett was initially charged with discharging a firearm during a crime, carrying a 10-year mandatory sentence. Following a plea agreement, Pickett instead entered a guilty plea to a firearms violation and an Alford plea to assaulting a federal officer. He was sentenced to three years at the Federal Medical Center, Rochester followed by three years of probation.[1][2][3]

On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda hijackers stormed the aircraft's cockpit 46 minutes after takeoff. The pilot and first officer took measures, such as de-activating the autopilot, to hinder the hijackers. Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the east coast, in the direction of Washington, D.C. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol.[4][5]

After the hijackers took control of the plane, several passengers and flight attendants learned from phone calls that suicide attacks had already been made by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Many of the passengers then attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, the plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, about 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 130 miles (210 km) northwest of Washington, D.C.[6] Bush was not at the White House or Capitol Building at the time of the attacks and was instead at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota County, Florida.

May 10, 2005: While President Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade toward the podium. The grenade was live and had its pin pulled, but did not explode because a red tartan handkerchief was wrapped tightly around it, preventing the safety lever from detaching.[7][8] After escaping that day, Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005. During his arrest, he killed an Interior Ministry agent. He was convicted in January 2006 and given a life sentence.[9][10]

• Security incidents involving Barack Obama