“The current fence simply is not adequate for a modern era. We’ve said that before. It is becoming more and more acutely clear that that is in fact the case,” Secret Service official Tom Dougherty said in the briefing to federal officials released to NBC.
The fence will include “anti-climb” features, such as small spikes.
“(The fence) is entirely scale-able, depending upon the circumstances. And we have now a society that tends to want to jump over the fence and onto the 18 acres,” Dougherty stated.
The Secret Service will be working with the National Park Service to accomplish the task.
Plans for a new fence come after a man who had just stolen a woman’s purse hopped the fence to the White House grounds while fleeing. The man reportedly did not realize it was the fence to the president’s abode, and was just trying to get away from officers chasing him for the purse theft.
On Thanksgiving, another man was arrested after scaling the fence while wearing an American flag, and in September of 2014, a military veteran with a knife hopped the fence and made it all the way inside the White House before being apprehended.
