President Donald Trump’s motorcade got some surprise action when a young driver lost control of her vehicle and jumped a concrete culvert as the president traveled down Kearney Street in Springfield, Missouri on Wednesday.
“It was terrifying,” 17-year-old Samantha Morris, the driver of the vehicle, told KY3.
Morris was with a friend, 18-year-old Nina Hicks, driving to work when she said her brakes suddenly went out. She swerved to avoid a guard at the entrance of her work, nearly went into a pond, and eventually careened over a concrete culvert on Kearney Street to come to rest along the roadside.
Videos of the incident show the vehicle rolling out of a wooded area and over the concrete ditch shortly before Secret Service agents peeled off from the motorcade to investigate the ordeal.
“I was pumping my brakes hard, they were smoking and I couldn’t stop at all,” Morris said.
“I just thought we’d hit a fence,” she said. “I thought there was a fence. We were crazy close to that pond. We could have drowned.”
Secret Service agents searched Morris’ vehicle for anything dangerous and later released the girls after confirming their story.
It appears someone attempted to ram their car into President Trump’s motorcade in Springfield, MO.
They failed because of a concrete ditch. pic.twitter.com/POeaAi2rmx— /pol/ News Infinity (@polNewsInfinity) August 31, 2017
Local Clayton Hefner recorded video of the incident and posted it to YouTube under the title “Vehicle attempts to ram presidential motorcade in Springfield, Mo.” It has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
“At the time I thought that was what happened. I’ve been asked to change it,” he said. “I’m not going to.”
“I mean the location and timing are pretty ironic if it was accidental, so,” Hefner said.
Now he’s cashing in on the footage.
“The New York Post paid him $700 plus 70 percent of any future profits for the video,” KY3 reports.
KY3 also published a second video recorded from directly across the street. That video shows Morris’ white car barreling out of the woods just as the motorcade went by.
Springfield Police commented about the incident on Twitter to make it clear “no intent of harm or disruption to motorcade,” Ozarks First reports.
Neither of the girls in the car were injured, though they have received threats since the videos went viral.
Morris said she doesn’t care that Hefner is profiting from the traumatic experience, but doesn’t appreciate the video’s title, which implies she attempted to harm the president.
“I got extremely angry that people now think I’m a bad person because one 21-year-old guy decided a YouTube video was more important than my life and my safety,” she said.
Hefner did, however, clarify the situation in the video’s description.
“This video is for entertainment purposes only, and is in no way meant to accuse the driver and/or passenger of the car of attempting to assassinate the president,” he wrote. “No matter what you believe the video depicts please do not try and threaten/contact/or scare these two women. They’ve been through enough.”
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