U.S. Secret Service officers arrested a Venezuelan man near the White House in Washington, D.C., on Thursday night, November 5, after they approached him in a parked vehicle on Constitution Avenue and found three firearms and dozens of rounds of ammunition in a pickup truck that had been reported stolen, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement reported by the Associated Press on Friday, November 6. DHS said the man told officers that voices in his head were telling him to come to the nation's capital and kill President Donald Trump. That account of what the man allegedly said comes from DHS and from a criminal complaint filed in D.C. Superior Court; it is an allegation relayed by the authorities, not a finding by a court, and the man has not been convicted of anything.
Source: Associated Press via The Washington Sun
The suspect was identified by DHS as Ronny Yordrix Guanipa Chrinos, a national of Venezuela. According to the Associated Press account of the DHS statement, Secret Service officers approached him because he was “acting suspicious” in a parked car near the White House, and he then described the voices he said were telling him to travel to Washington and kill the Republican president. Shortly afterwards, officers discovered that his vehicle had been reported stolen and that there were three different firearms and dozens of rounds of ammunition inside it.
What the court complaint describes
A fuller picture of the encounter comes from the criminal complaint filed in D.C. Superior Court, as reported by IANS. The complaint says Chrinos was in a blue Ford F-150 pickup parked on Constitution Avenue — the broad avenue that runs along the National Mall, a short distance from the White House complex — when an officer approached the vehicle late on Thursday and asked whether he was safe and whether he had any weapons. According to the complaint, Chrinos indicated that he was carrying weapons and made a finger-gun gesture before stepping out of the truck, and he communicated with investigators through Google Translate.
Source: IANS via Madhyamam
During questioning, according to the complaint account, Chrinos allegedly said he had a gun because someone had tried to kill him with it and that he had taken it from that person, and he directed officers to a brown bag inside the vehicle. A search of the stolen pickup then uncovered the three firearms: an AR-15-style rifle, a MAC-10 handgun and a Glock 43X pistol, along with dozens of rounds of ammunition. No one was reported harmed in the encounter, and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the man was arrested “before he could harm anyone.”
The charges he faces
Fox News, reporting the DHS statement, listed the charges against Chrinos as: carrying a rifle outside of a home or business; three counts of unlawful transportation of a firearm; three counts of possessing an unregistered firearm; three counts of possessing unregistered ammunition; possession of certain dangerous weapons; carrying a pistol without a license; unauthorized use of a motor vehicle; theft; and receiving stolen property. Every one of those charges is an allegation at this stage. Chrinos appeared before D.C. Superior Court on Friday, November 6, and remains in custody without bond, according to online court records cited by IANS. The Associated Press reported that he remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
Source: Fox News via AmeriLedger (DHS statement)
The claim that voices told Chrinos to kill the president is what DHS says he told officers, and the weapons and stolen-vehicle counts are charges filed by prosecutors. None of it has been tested or proven in court, no plea has been reported, and Chrinos is presumed innocent unless and until he is convicted.
His immigration status and the ICE detainer
DHS described Chrinos as a migrant from Venezuela who is in the United States illegally after entering through Texas in March 2024. Fox News reported, citing officials, that he was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol after that entry and was later released into the country under the Biden administration. After Thursday's arrest, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an immigration detainer for Chrinos with the U.S. Marshals Service, which currently holds him — a detainer is ICE's formal notice that it wants to take custody of a person when the criminal case and the holding agency's custody allow it. For Punjabi and other immigrant readers in the United States, this is the practical sequence to understand in cases like this one: the criminal charges in court come first, and any immigration action runs behind them through the detainer, rather than the person simply being handed over on the street.
What the officials said
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in the DHS statement: “Thanks to our brave Secret Service officers, this illegal alien with three firearms in his vehicle was arrested near the White House before he could harm anyone.” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said: “This is the latest example of Secret Service personnel relying on extensive training and experience to de-escalate a volatile situation that posed an imminent threat to our protectees and other Americans.” Curran added that the agency is “alarmed by the increase in threat cases that continue to arise,” and said it would keep focusing on proactively investigating and identifying individuals who raise suspicion before they reach Washington. The White House itself did not comment and referred questions to DHS and the Secret Service, the Associated Press reported.
Background: a series of White House security cases
The Associated Press noted that this is the latest in a series of arrests the Secret Service and other law-enforcement agencies have made against individuals who have threatened President Trump or members of his family since he returned to office last year. Fox News pointed to two separate earlier incidents in which suspects rammed vehicles into security barricades near the White House, in March 2026 and in October 2025, and to a case three months ago in which a California resident was found near Capitol Hill after driving across the country with an operational 10-foot guillotine in his pickup truck. IANS also recalled that earlier this year authorities charged Cole Tomas Allen in connection with a shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, on charges including attempted assassination of the president. Together, the cases explain why a man sitting in a parked pickup on Constitution Avenue on a Thursday night drew an immediate Secret Service response.
Why this matters beyond Washington
Constitution Avenue is not a remote security zone: it is one of the capital's main east–west avenues, carrying commuters, tour buses and trucks along the National Mall between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial area, minutes from the White House fence line. An armed arrest there is therefore both a protective-service case and a public-safety case for everyone who drives or works in the centre of the capital. For the large Punjabi diaspora in the United States — including the many truck drivers who pass through the Washington corridor on the I-95 and I-495 routes — the case is also a reminder of how quickly a vehicle stop near a protected site escalates when firearms, a stolen vehicle and a stated threat against the president come together in one encounter.
What happens next
Chrinos remains in U.S. Marshals Service custody without bond after his Friday court appearance, with an ICE detainer lodged against him. His criminal case now proceeds in D.C. Superior Court on the firearms, ammunition and stolen-property charges; no next hearing date, plea or defence statement had been reported in the accounts published by Saturday morning, November 7. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if the court sets a further hearing or if the Secret Service or DHS releases more of the complaint.