A disturbing report from the Washington Post claims the Secret Service badly mishandled the response to a 2011 shooting at the White House. The elite agency allegedly took five days to even realize a gunman had shot at the White House, despite multiple eye witnesses.

“It was obviously very frightening that someone who didn’t really plan it that well was able to shoot and hit the White House and people here did not know it until several days later,” former White House chief of staff, William Daley, told the Post.

Although the President and First Lady were out of town on the evening of Nov. 11, 2011, their younger daughter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, were inside the residence, and older daughter Malia was expected back soon from an outing with friends.

That night, Oscar Ortega-Hernandez parked his black Honda in closed lane of Constitution Avenue about 700 yards south of the White House. He then fired a semiautomatic rifle out of the passenger window. At least seven bullets struck the upstairs residence, smashing a window and lodging in a window frame. While secret service agents on the scene initially sprang into action to respond, according to the Post, they were surprised by the next order that came over the radio: “No shots have been fired… stand down.”

“That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House,” writes the Post’s  Carol D. Leonnig.

The secret service did not even subsequently acknowledge the White House had been shot at until a housekeeper alerted an agent to a bullet lodged in a window frame.