WASHINGTON-- U.S. Secret Service officers shot a man who brandished a gun near the White House, prompting a brief lockdown of the building.
President Barack Obama was not in the White House at the time of the shooting, which occurred mid-afternoon on May 20.
Officials told local media that one person had been transported to a hospital in critical condition.
One bystander told The Associated Press that the man walked up to a security gate not from the executive mansion, where Obama and his family live, with a pistol pointed at the ground.
Uniformed officers from the Secret Service, which the protective force for the president and many top U.S. officials, then drew their guns and at least one shot was fired.
There have been several incidents in recent years that prompted criticism of the Secret Service and raised questions about White House security.
In September 2014, a man carrying a knife jumped a fence and barged his way past officers into the White House itself before being tackled.
That episode led to the resignation of the Secret Service director.
In March 2015, two agents who had been out drinking drove into a White House barricade inches away from a suspicious package that investigators were examining as a possible bomb.