WASHINGTON (AP) — A man with a gun was shot outside the White House fence Wednesday after he refused to surrender to Secret Service officers, a law enforcement officer said. President Bush was reported safe inside the residence. 

The incident occurred around 11:30 a.m. EST, and the man with the gun was taken to a hospital after being wounded, the official said. 

Secret Service agents and police surrounded the White House. 

Bush was in the White House residence and ``was never in any danger,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. 

The U.S. Park Police said a 17-year-old was in custody. 

The Secret Service said one of its officers shot the man outside the White House. 

The person was taken to nearby George Washington University Hospital, a Fire Department spokesman said. 

One law enforcement official said at least one shot was fired in the incident. Several witnesses said they heard a popping sound that appeared to be a gunshot. 

A spokeswoman for Rep. Bob Clement, D-Tenn. said Clement was attending a meeting with Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card in the West Wing of the White House at the time of the incident and no one was allowed to leave the grounds after the meeting. 

``They locked down the entire White House,'' said the spokeswoman, Christi Ray. 

At the Treasury Department, the entrance between the department and White House was immediately closed. 

Security has been tightened in and around the White House in recent years. The most significant change was the closing of the section of Pennsylvania Avenue that passed in front of the Executive Mansion. Wednesday's incident was on the opposite side of the White House, the back side facing toward the Washington Monument. 

In May 1995, the Secret Service shot a man who scaled a White House fence, carrying an unloaded gun. An official said at the time the man had asked to see President Clinton. 

Nine months earlier, a pilot died when he crashed a small plane on the South Lawn of the White House. About a month later, a man pulled a rifle from under his trench coat and sprayed the front of the White House with bullets. 

More than a mile east of the White House, in the summer of 1998, a gunman went on a shooting spree in the U.S. Capitol, killing two policemen. 

Russell Eugene Weston, 43, has been held since then. He has not stood trial for the slayings because doctors have said he is mentally ill and unable to do so. 

In March 1981, a gunman shot President Reagan, press secretary James Brady and a D.C. policeman outside a Washington hotel as the president was getting into his motorcade.