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Authorities have released a suspect who got onto Wright-Patterson Air Force Base without authorization after driving passed a gate guard without stopping and walking into a building on the base Tuesday, according to a spokesman.
The man, whose identity has not been disclosed, was released Tuesday pending a hearing in federal court, Wright-Patterson spokesman Daryl Mayer said Wednesday.
Investigators may take at least a week to determine what happened and why and to decide if the suspect should be charged, Mayer said.
Wright-Patterson has not released the man’s name nor his age or area of residence, and only described him as a Caucasian male who was not authorized access to the base.
“I can’t give any identifying information unless and until he is charged,” Mayer said.
Questions lingered over how the suspect got through Gate 22B near Interstate 675 at 9:40 a.m. Tuesday and then gained entry on foot into Building 620 in the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Sensors Directorate. The incursion caused employees to be evacuated from Buildings 600 and 620 for about three hours and a nearby child development center was ordered to “shelter in place.”
The distance between the gate and the building is about 1,500 to 1,800 feet, according to the base.
Employees challenged the man when he entered the building without a workplace badge, and turned him over to a building security manager until Wright-Patterson security forces arrived. Mayer has said the man did not resist employees when detained and showed no “ill intent.” Mayer said additional details would not be released until the investigation is complete.
A regional Federal Bureau of Investigation Joint Terrorism Task Force responded to the base, according to Rick C. Smith, FBI supervisory special agent. He declined further comment. Police agencies also closed for a time National Road around the entrance to Gate 19B and cordoned off at least one road on the base.
Incident comes as nation on alert
Terrorism fears have heightened in recent weeks with deadly attacks in Paris and Mali. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama said “no specific and credible” information indicated the threat of “an attack on the homeland” over the Thanksgiving holiday period.
Loren B. Thompson, a senior defense analyst at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the details of what happened at Wright-Patterson “suggest a significant lapse in the base’s physical security.”
“These kinds of incursions are not all that uncommon,” he added. “We’ve had them multiple times at the White House in recent years because it’s just hard to envision all the possible ways somebody might penetrate a perimeter.”
Divided into two land areas, dubbed Area A and Area B, Wright-Patterson maps show 13 gates to the sprawling base covering more than 8,100 acres. The base, the largest single site employer in Ohio, has more than 26,000 employees and more than 700 buildings. Area B, where the gate runner was reported, has seven gates.
“When a base is as big as Wright-Patterson, it’s pretty expensive to patrol all the potential areas that could be penetrated,” Thompson said. “Even when it’s not a formal access point, it is not hard to get over fences. … Physical intrusions on a base of this size are likely to occur occasionally. The real question is figuring out how it happens so the gap can be plugged.”
How did he get so far?
Fred J. Peckolt, 78, who said he was a retired Wright-Patterson firefighter, was among those who said they were surprised to hear how far the man made his way onto base and into a workplace building in the secretive area of sensors research.
“It makes me wonder the way things are going right now how a person got that far in because there’s a lot of places he could have done damage to,” the Miamisburg man said.
Since becoming installation commander more than a year ago, Col. John M. Devillier has said base security was a top priority.
Mayer said the investigation will review security procedures in the aftermath of what happened.
“We are going to review step-by-step everything that happened and from that make educated decisions on if and what needs to be changed,” he said.
When asked if guards were authorized to use deadly force during the incident, Mayer said in an email: “There are many factors to consider when making a use of force decision and our security forces are well trained to quickly evaluate decisions and determine the minimum amount of force necessary to achieve their mission.”
In recent months, Wright-Patterson has invested in a security gate upgrade. Gate 12A, a major entrance way near Air Force Materiel Command headquarters off Ohio 444, was temporarily closed earlier this year as part of $1.3 million in security improvements.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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