WASHINGTON — The apprehension of a man who jumped the White House fence Wednesday night and was bitten by a guard dog highlighted one of the Secret Service’s most effective weapons: its canines.
Secret Service agents and K-9 units quickly subdued the latest fence jumper, whom authorities identified as Dominic Adesanya, 23, of Bel Air, Md., after he punched two of the Secret Service dogs, Hurricane and Jordan, authorities say.
The two animals were taken to a veterinarian and treated for minor bruising they suffered during the incident, said agency spokesman Edwin Donovan, while Adesanya was taken to a hospital with injuries from a dog bite and is in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
“Both K-9s were cleared for duty by the veterinarian,” Donovan wrote in an e-mail.
Adesanya has been charged with two counts of assault on a police officer — a charge that stems from the attack on the dogs — along with one count of making threats and four counts of resisting and unlawful entry, Donovan added.
All of the charges except for resisting and unlawful threats are felonies. Adesanya was unarmed at the time of his arrest.
Adesanya’s rapid apprehension posed a marked contrast to the agency’s handling of Omar J. Gonzalez, a 42-year-old Army veteran who authorities say jumped the White House fence and ran far into the executive mansion through an unlocked front door on September 19.
The incident involving Gonzalez set off a series of embarrassing revelations about the Secret Service and helped lead to the resignation of its then-director, Julia Pierson.
In the case of Gonzalez, the agency’s guard dogs were not released, raising questions about a security breakdown at the White House.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security, praised the Secret Service in an interview for defending the president so effectively Wednesday.
“I love the dogs,” Chaffetz said, adding that having watched a video showing Hurricane and Jordan being assaulted, “I hated to see him punch the dogs, but obviously they could take a punch. I was thrilled to see they’re back on duty.”
The Secret Service’s K-9 unit is operated by the uniformed division, which is separate from the special agents who are assigned to the presidential detail. The dogs are trained at the agency’s James. J. Rowley Training Center in Laurel, Md., a complex spanning 500 acres and 31 buildings.
Former Secret Service officials said the Belgian Malinois are selected because of their unique characteristics; they are smart, strong, agile and obedient. An adult male weighs more than 60 pounds and can run in bursts twice as fast as the swiftest human. Its short hair makes it ideal for work in heat, and the Malinois are more compact, agile and higher-energy than German shepherds.
The dogs are trained for specific skills — some are assigned to the bomb squad and are used during security sweeps at hotels and other buildings where the presidential entourage will be staying.
The attack dogs on the White House grounds do not have any other duties than to subdue intruders, the officials said.
“Once you release the dogs to their objective, there’s not much that can stop them,” said former Secret Service director Ralph Basham, who oversaw the agency from 2003 to 2006.
That objective, he added, is “take them down, slam into them. There are certain parts of the body they are trained to attack. They are trained to stop the intruder and give the handler time to respond.”
The Secret Service has 75 canines in all. Each dog costs $4,500, according to “In the President’s Secret Service,” a 2010 book by journalist Ronald Kessler.
The agency, which began its K-9 program in 1975, puts the canine candidates through 20 weeks of training. After they are cleared for duty, they remain with their handler around the clock and undergo at least eight hours a week of refresher training.
“They become part of the family,” according to the Secret Service website.
Most Secret Service dogs work until they are about 10 years old. “When a canine is ready to retire,” the site said, “it is retired to the handler.”
The dogs don’t have a spotless record, however. In April 2012, Secret Service agents on a presidential trip to Cartagena, Colombia, reportedly allowed the dogs to defecate on the property of the Hotel Caribe, near the hotel manager’s room — angering the staff.
Fallen K-9s merit full honors. Homeland Security bestowed an official commemoration for Maxo, a 3-year-old Malinois who fell to its death in 2013 from the sixth floor of a parking area in New Orleans while doing advance sweeps for a visit by Vice President Joe Biden.
