- Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, the man apprehended as the suspected source of the gunfire directed at the White House last week, will face a charge of “attempted assassination.” This is a curious case for reasons of proximity — President Obama wasn’t in the White House, or even on the East Coast, when the shots were fired. That said, whether or not this qualifies as an assassination attempt in a legal sense (we’re not lawyers, so any clarification would be helpful) may have to do with whether Ortega-Hernandez actually knew that, or believed the President to be sitting in the White House when he opened fire. source