Armed man faces charges after arrest near White House

Secret Service officers arrested an armed man near the White House late Thursday after he told them he had heard voices urging him to kill President Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security said. Officers found three guns and dozens of rounds of ammunition in his vehicle, which had been reported stolen.

DHS identified the man as Ronny Yordrix Guanipa Chrinos, a Venezuelan national. Officers approached him while he was parked on Constitution Avenue because they believed he was acting suspiciously, the department said. A law enforcement source told CBS News the encounter took place in the 1600 block of Constitution Avenue NW, near the Ellipse.

“When they confronted the suspect, he said that he heard voices in his head telling him to come to Washington, D.C. and kill President Trump,” DHS said in a statement Friday. The department said Chrinos told officers there were weapons in the vehicle.

According to an officer’s court affidavit reported by NBC News, Chrinos, 26, was asleep in a parked blue Ford F-150 when officers woke him at 11:42 p.m. They initially treated the encounter as a welfare check. Using Google Translate, Chrinos told an officer he had weapons he wanted to turn over to the government, the affidavit says.

“I have the item they wanted to kill me over, along with the outfit to go with it; if you want, I can hand it over without putting up any resistance,” he said through the app, according to the affidavit. He also said he had a gun because others had tried to kill him with it and he had taken it from them, the document says.

DHS said officers found an AR-15-style rifle, a MAC-10 handgun, a Glock 43X pistol and ammunition. Chrinos told investigators the truck belonged to his boss, who had lent it to him, according to the affidavit. He said he had bought the weapons a month earlier and had been living in the vehicle.

DHS said Chrinos faces three counts each of unlawful transportation of a firearm, carrying unregistered firearms and carrying unregistered ammunition. It also listed charges of possession of certain dangerous weapons, carrying a pistol without a license, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, theft and receiving stolen property. NBC News reported that DHS also listed a charge of carrying a rifle outside a home or business.

The department said Chrinos entered the United States through Texas in March 2024, was arrested by Border Patrol and later released. It said he was in the country illegally and remained in custody Friday. It was not clear whether he had an attorney. A federal law enforcement source told NBC News that prosecutors were reviewing the evidence and that Chrinos was expected in federal court Monday.

Secret Service Director Sean Curran credited officers’ training in de-escalating the encounter. “While our personnel are trained to respond to situations like this and we remain confident in our tactics, we are alarmed by the increase in threat cases that continue to arise,” he said.