A Secret Service agent guarding one of President Biden’s granddaughters fired at three people seen breaking into an unoccupied government vehicle in Washington late Sunday but did not appear to have hit them, according to a senior law enforcement official.
The three people remain at large, and there is no indication that they knew that the vehicle was part of the protective detail for Mr. Biden’s granddaughter Naomi Biden when they smashed a window around 11:30 p.m. in the upscale Georgetown section of the city.
“Secret Service agents encountered possibly three individuals breaking a window on a parked and unoccupied government vehicle,” a spokesman for the Secret Service said in a statement. “During this encounter, a federal agent discharged a service weapon and it is believed no one was struck.”
There was no threat to the “protectees,” according to the statement, which did not specify whom they might be. A senior law enforcement official later confirmed the protectee was Ms. Biden.
The three fled in a red vehicle, and a bulletin was immediately issued to local and federal law enforcement agencies. The incident is being investigated by the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department and the Secret Service.
The police department’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House referred calls to the Secret Service.
While the post-pandemic spike in crime has subsided in many cities, carjacking and auto theft rates in Washington have been on the rise. Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, was carjacked near the Capitol in October by three armed men who sped away in his car but left him otherwise unharmed.
Ms. Biden, 29, is the daughter of the president’s son Hunter Biden. A year ago, she became the first presidential granddaughter to be married at the White House when she wed Peter Neal in a ceremony on the South Lawn.
