At approximately 3:30 Sunday afternoon, a 45-year-old man from Texas named Michael Marx drew a firearm near the Washington Monument — 1.1 miles from the White House — and opened fire on Secret Service agents. The agents returned fire and hit him. A juvenile bystander was struck by a bullet, though officials couldn’t confirm whether it came from Marx or the agents’ return fire as of yet. The child’s injuries were non-life-threatening. Marx was hospitalized.
Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn confirmed what happened plainly: Marx “fired in the direction of our agents and officers. They returned fire and engaged.” Plainclothes officers had spotted Marx near 15th Street and Independence Avenue SW, near the Sidney R. Yates building, acting as though he was armed. When uniformed officers approached, he fled on foot, then turned and shot at them.
Vice President Vance’s motorcade had passed through the area a mere minute before the shooting. Officials stated there was no indication Marx was targeting the motorcade — but the proximity alone tells you something about the security environment we’re operating in right now.
By Monday morning, most of your news feed had moved on.
Now imagine this had happened during the Biden administration. A gunman opens fire on Secret Service agents less than a mile and a half from the White House. A child gets caught in the crossfire. Every network would be running wall-to-wall coverage. Congress would be holding emergency hearings before the shell casings cooled. The New York Times would have a 4,000-word investigation connecting the shooter to a Facebook group that once shared a conservative meme.
Instead, we got a paragraph and a road closure alert.
This is the same media environment that has spent four years telling half the country the other half are fascists. The same outlets that run nightly segments about democracy “under threat” and the current administration as a “fascist regime.” Someone tried to assassinate President Trump twice. A brewery owner in Wisconsin offered patrons free beer the day that anyone successfuly took out the president. A judge apologized to the would-be assassin for his jail cell being too brightly lit. And now a man opened fire on federal agents protecting the nation’s capital on a Sunday afternoon.
We don’t know Marx’s social media history or his motivations yet. But we do know this: the Secret Service had to shoot a man who drew a weapon and fired at them near the seat of American government in broad daylight. That’s not normal.
A child took a bullet because Michael Marx decided Sunday afternoon was the right time to go to war with the Secret Service. That family doesn’t care about political takes. They care that their kid got shot in Washington D.C.
The Secret Service did their jobs. Thank God they shot straight. But “Secret Service successfully stops another attack near the White House” is becoming a recurring headline — and the people most responsible for the atmosphere that produces these moments are the last ones who’ll acknowledge it.
VP Vance is safe. The agents who stopped Marx deserve recognition. The kid who got hit deserves our prayers.
And we deserve a media that treats an attack on federal agents near the White House as the story it actually is.