The Night Bullets Hit The White
House
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The gunman parked his black Honda
directly south of the White House, on a closed lane off Constitution Avenue. It
was about ten minutes to nine on the evening of November 11, 2011. He pointed a
semiautomatic rifle out the passenger window, aimed directly at the home of the
president of the United States, and pulled the trigger. Then again, and again.
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A bullet smashed a window on the
second floor, just steps from the First Family's formal living room. Another
lodged in a window frame, and several more pinged off the roof, sending bits of
debris to the ground. At least eight bullets flew seven hundred yards across
the South Lawn. Seven of them struck the Obama family's upstairs residence.
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President Obama and his wife were
out of town on that chilly evening. But their younger daughter, Sasha, and
Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, were inside the home. Their older
daughter, Malia, was expected back any moment from an outing with friends.
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Secret Service officers rushed to
respond. One, stationed directly under the second-floor terrace where the
bullets struck, drew her .357 handgun and prepared to crack open an emergency
gun
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Carol Leonnig "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" (2021)
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