As the Secret Service prepares for a second take at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, on Friday, Director Sean Curran defended how his agency handled security at the first version of the dinner.
“It did work,” Curran said at a press conference Wednesday. “The system worked.”
The dinner in April was shut down after a gunman opened fire as he rushed through a Secret Service screening checkpoint on the floor above where the dinner was being held. The man hit one officer before he was detained by several agents.
Curran noted that the man, who was staying as a guest at the hotel prior to the dinner, was stopped over 100 yards from the podium.
“That is the success. That is why we set up checkpoints,” Curran told reporters when asked about security preparations and reassurances for guests attending the rescheduled event Friday. “That is why we have our teams, our special teams, in place because we do plan for that, and that’s the reality.”
