Law enforcement officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect tonight at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but the suspect was not struck, said Jeff Carroll, interim chief of police for the Metropolitan Police Department.
He said the man ran through a Secret Service checkpoint in the hotel lobby and was "intercepted" by Secret Service personnel.
"At this point, we do know that law enforcement exchanged gunfire with the individual," Carroll said.
Though the man was not shot, he was taken to a local hospital, Carroll said.
A Secret Service uniform division officer was struck in his vest, Carroll noted, and transported to a local hospital for treatment. He described the officer as being in "good spirits."
"I heard a noise and sort of thought it was a tray. I thought it was a tray going down," Trump said. "I've heard that many times, and it was a pretty loud noise, and it was from quite far away."
The president said that "some people really understood that pretty quickly. Other people didn't."
"I was watching to see what was happening, probably should have gotten down even faster," Trump said. "Melania was very cognizant, I think, of what happened. I think she knew immediately what happened. She was saying, 'That's a bad noise.'"
The president said the man “hadn’t reached the area at all” and was “quite far away."
“He charged from 50 yards away, so he was very far away from the room," Trump said.
He was moving, he was really moving," the president continued. "And the reaction time was great, boy. Those guys, they had their guns drawn. Literally, by the time he was there, they were shooting. I thought they were very impressive."
