A man arrested during an incident where someone appeared to be trying to break into the Ohio house of JD Vance with a hammer is to appear in court on Tuesday.
The vice-president on Monday thanked law enforcement in Ohio for arresting someone he referred to as a “crazy person” who had turned up at his Cincinnati home overnight.
The Secret Service said in a statement that one person was in custody after the incident, which took place in the early hours of Monday. Vance had returned to Washington DC the day before.
“I appreciate everyone’s well wishes about the attack at our home. As far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows. I’m grateful to the secret service and the Cincinnati police for responding quickly,” Vance wrote in a post to X.
He then assailed the media for covering the incident.
“One request to the media: we try to protect our kids as much as possible from the realities of this life of public service. In that light, I am skeptical of the news value of plastering images of our home with holes in the windows.”
Vance spent last week at the house overlooking the Ohio River, but left on Sunday afternoon, Cincinnati news channel WLWT reported. The channel published to its website a photograph purporting to show damage to at least four panes of glass in what looked to be a ground-floor window.
The Secret Service said an adult male was arrested shortly after midnight “for causing property damage, including breaking windows on the exterior of a personal residence associated with the vice-president”.
“The US Secret Service is coordinating with the Cincinnati police department and the US attorney’s office as charging decisions are reviewed,” a spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement sent to the Guardian.
Two unnamed law enforcement sources said that Secret Service agents heard a loud noise at the home around midnight and found a person who had broken a window with a hammer and was trying to get into the house. The man had also vandalized a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said.
A law enforcement official identified the suspect as William Defoor, 26, of Crestview Hills, Kentucky. Defoor is set to be arraigned on Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of vandalism, criminal trespass, criminal damaging and obstruction of official business, court records showed on Monday afternoon.
Court records showed that Defoor faced an earlier charge of vandalism in 2024 and agreed to treatment under the county’s mental health court system.
Calls to the listings for possible relatives and an attorney who previously represented Defoor were not immediately returned.
While Vance enjoys round-the-clock personal protection by the Secret Service as vice-president, the level of security maintained at his private residence varies according to his travel plans.
Many politicians have taken steps to enhance security after the June 2025 killing of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband at their Minneapolis home, and an attack on another Democratic lawmaker and his wife in the city on the same night.
In October 2024, a man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attacking Paul Pelosi, husband of the Democratic former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, with a hammer at their California home.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
