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Man breaks into US Vice President JD Vance’s home
05th January, 2026 08:03 PM
JD Vance on Monday, January 5, 2025, thanked law enforcement in Ohio for arresting someone he referred to as a “crazy person, whom the US vice president said tried to break into his Cincinnati home with a hammer overnight.
The Secret Service said in a statement that one person was in custody following the incident, which occurred in the early hours of Monday. Vance had returned to Washington, D.C., the day before.
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“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 sceptical 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.
WLWT said Secret Service agents and Cincinnati police spent several hours at the house in the East Walnut Hills neighbourhood after responding to reports of damage to windows.
Two unnamed law enforcement sources told the Associated Press 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 vandalised a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said.
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.
