The police in Washington, D.C. arrested two suspects who allegedly broke into a parked Secret Service vehicle that President Joe Biden’s adult granddaughter, Naomi, used, and then escaped in a getaway car Nov. 2023, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Robert Kemp, 19, of Northwest Washington, and an unnamed 14-year-old youth were arrested after the police found the suspect’s abandoned getaway car and used fingerprints on items in it to identify the suspects, according to the report.
The suspects allegedly took a protective vest, night-vision goggles, a first aid bag, and a computer router from the Secret Service vehicle into their getaway car, which also reportedly had a McDonald’s bag and food receipt. Both suspects’ fingerprints reportedly were on the stolen items while Kemp’s were on the food receipt, according to the report.
The break-in of the Secret Service vehicle occurred Nov. 12, 2023, in front of a Georgetown residence. Two Secret Service agents reportedly saw the suspects’ getaway car stop near the Secret Service vehicle before the break-in and then saw a leg jutting out of a broken window of the Secret Service vehicle.
The agents shouted “police” at the suspects, who then allegedly escaped into their getaway car, the report noted. One of the agents reportedly fired at the suspects’ getaway car which narrowly missed the agent as the suspects broke away, but the shots hit no one. (RELATED: Blue City Proposal To Combat Violent Crime Surge Won’t Go Nearly Far Enough, Critics Say)
A man and a 14-year-old were arrested in connection with a break-in of a Secret Service vehicle used by President Biden’s granddaughter that was parked outside a Georgetown residence in November, according to authorities and court documents.https://t.co/6HY4g1lsHr
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 21, 2024
Kemp reportedly was arrested Feb. 7, charged with theft and unauthorized use of a vehicle. He was subsequently freed and faces a court hearing Feb. 29. More charges could follow.
The juvenile reportedly was arrested last Friday and charged in connection with the robbery at gunpoint of three ride-share drivers in mid-January and early February, after which he was linked to the break-in of the Secret Service vehicle. He was wearing an electronic tag during the break-in as the tag indicated his presence in the area on the date of the break-in, according to the report.
Washington, D.C. witnessed a nearly 40% spike in violent crime from 3,850 in 2022 to 5,336 in 2023, according to the city’s Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) “preliminary” statistics. It has seen more robberies (340 documented incidents) in 2024 than in all of 2023 (329), the MPD’s statistics showed. Property crimes in the city in 2024 (3,470 documented incidents) nearly equal the total number of property crimes in 2023 (3,908), according to the statistics.