US President Donald Trump was briefly escorted out of the White House by a Secret Service agent from an ongoing Coronavirus briefing on Monday after a shooting was reported outside the official residence.

Secret Service guards had reportedly shot a person, who was apparently armed, outside the White House.

The president was abruptly ushered out of the press event and black-clad secret service agents with automatic rifles rushed across the lawn north of the White House.

However, minutes later, President Trump reappeared at the press conference and informed that a person had been shot by the Secret Service outside the White House grounds and added that the situation was “very well under control.”

He also thanked the the Secret Service for doing their “always quick and very effective work.”

“There was a shooting outside White House and seems to be very well under control. I would like to thank the Secret Service for doing their always quick and very effective work.”

“Law enforcement shot someone, it seems to be, the suspect. And the suspect is on the way to the hospital,” Donald Trump told reporters who had been locked in following the incident.

Trump said he knew nothing about the identity or motives of the person shot, but when asked if the person had been armed, he answered: “From what I understand, the answer is yes.”

“It might not have had anything to do with me,” Trump added, saying the incident took place “on the outside” of the White House perimeter.

“I don’t believe anything was breached, they were relatively far away,” he added.

Asked if he was rattled by the incident, he replied: “The world’s always been a dangerous place. It’s not something that’s unique.”

President Donald Trump went onto praise the Secret Service as “fantastic people, the best of the best.”

“I feel very safe with Secret Service,” he said. “A lot of terrific looking people ready to go if something was necessary.”

Taking to Twitter about the incident, the Secret Service said: “The Secret Service can confirm there has been an officer involved shooting at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Ave.

“Law enforcement officials are on the scene. More information to follow.”

In a subsequent tweet, Secret Service said the suspect involved was a male and that an officer was also injured and taken to the hospital, The Hill news website reported.

“At no time during this incident was the White House complex breached or were any protectees in danger.”

A chaotic scene unfolded in the moments after Trump was pulled from the briefing.

Armed Secret Service officers were seen stationed on the North Lawn of the White House as reporters inside the building scrambled to learn the cause of the lockdown.

Outside the White House, the situation was calm, but a portion of the surrounding streets had been blocked off, with a number of police and other official vehicles converging towards the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.

Philipos Melaku, a protester who has been camping in front of the White House for years, said he had heard a shot fired at around 5:50 pm (2150 GMT).

“I heard a gunshot and before that I heard screaming,” he told AFP.

“It was a male voice,” he said. “After that immediately, pointing their AR-15s, at least eight or nine men came in running.”

The incident was not the first time agents felt Trump’s safety was threatened, but it was by far the most visible, as the briefing was being broadcast live, said The Hill news report.

Late May, US President Donald Trump was abruptly rushed to an underground bunker as hundreds of protesters, raged by the death of George Floyd, gathered outside the White House and started throwing bricks and bottles and shouting curses at Trump.

The shocking videotaped death of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis had ignited the nationwide wave of outrage over law enforcement’s repeated use of lethal force against unarmed African Americans.

Floyd stopped breathing after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.