As he waited to be taken to a hospital after being shot once in the chest by a Secret Service agent, a Pennsylvania man answered a question put to him by a nearby officer, court files show.
Why, the Secret Service officer asked, had he come to the White House?
“I came here to shoot people,” Jesse A. Olivieri replied, according to court records.
Olivieri, 31, of Ashland, Pennsylvania, was charged Friday with a felony after allegedly approaching a guard booth outside the White House on May 20, pistol in hand and refusing to drop the gun after officers repeatedly ordered him to do so.
Olivieri remained hospitalized Friday, and no court appearance on the charge has been set.
The court files offered no other details on what may have drawn Olivieri to the booth near the Ellipse at the corner of 17th and E streets NW, carrying a silver .22-caliber Ruger handgun, as officers stated.
The incident just after 3 p.m. on a Friday prompted a White House lockdown. President Barack Obama was not at the complex at the time, and Vice President Joe Biden was secured inside, authorities said.
The shooting was the latest security incident at the White House and came two months after a Tennessee man, Larry Russell Dawson, 66, was shot by U.S. Capitol Police at a Capitol Visitor Center checkpoint while displaying a spring-powered BB gun.
Olivieri faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on a charge of resisting or impeding certain officers or employees with a dangerous weapon, prosecutors said Friday.
Olivieri remains at George Washington University Hospital, where police said he was taken in critical condition.
He is in stable condition, said Sgt. Anna Rose, a U.S. Park Police spokeswoman, but neither she nor a hospital spokeswoman elaborated on Olivieri’s condition.
According to court files, the incident with Olivieri began when police received a report of a gunshot about 3:05 p.m. from a witness walking west on the sidewalk of Constitution Avenue between 16th and 17th streets NW.
The witness reported hearing a loud “pop,” turning around and seeing a man matching Olivieri’s description carrying a silver handgun with a long barrel and walking quickly toward the White House away from a parked white Toyota Camry sedan, police said in statements supporting an arrest warrant.
Uniformed Secret Service officers encountered the man, wearing a gray T-shirt and khaki pants at E Street and South Place NW, the filings show.
“USSS officers repeatedly ordered Olivieri to stop, but he ignored their commands and continued to walk toward the White House,” according to the court files. “At that point a USSS agent confronted Olivieri, again ordering him to halt and drop his weapon. When he refused, the agent shot Olivieri once.”
Police said they recovered the handgun with nine rounds of ammunition from Olivieri, and his wallet and identification as well as a holster, 15 rounds of ammunition and a can of pepper spray from the Toyota, which was titled and registered in his name.
Police have declined to comment on a motive except to rule out terrorism. The investigation continues, led by U.S. Park Police because the incident occurred at the Ellipse, which is on National Park Service grounds, said Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. The Secret Service, FBI Washington Field Office and D.C. police also are participating.
Olivieri’s parents and other close relatives came to Washington after the shooting but have not responded to requests for interviews, including on Friday.
Few details have emerged of Olivieri’s life in Ashland — a borough of some 3,000 residents about 60 miles northwest of Harrisburg — where a neighbor said Olivieri lives with his father and has no children.
Another neighbor, Joseph Halko, said that he has known the family for 30 years and that Olivieri was a classmate of his daughter’s at North Schuylkill High School but transferred before graduating.
“They are a quiet family,” Halko said. “I’d sometimes walk by and see him on the porch or working on his car. He was a nice and quiet kid. My daughter was shocked.”
Washington Post writers Martin Weil, Clarence Williams and Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.