Would-Be Burglars Ruin Gray’s Ice Cream Interview

City Desk was scheduled to meet up with D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray for an interview Tuesday afternoon. The venue? The Thomas Sweet ice cream parlor in Georgetown, a place the chairman's mayoral campaign picked.

In the process, City Desk -- with photographer Darrow Montgomery in tow -- may have ruined an ice cream outing for President Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha, who are said to have a soft spot for Thomas Sweet's sweets.

Sorry, but City Desk did not have any advance knowledge of a White House ice cream outing. We promise!

As City Desk was waiting for Chairman Gray to arrive at Thomas Sweet, security agents with ear pieces came in to check out who was hanging around. Clearly they were trying to be low key. Was it Mayor Adrian Fenty's security detail? Nah. Staffers told City Desk later that the casually dressed guys with buzzcuts and earpiece wires were indeed the Secret Service's advance team.

With Montgomery's cameras out on the table, ready to shoot some new photos of the D.C. Council chairman, City Desk surmises that the Secret Service assumed we were there waiting to capture a priceless ice cream moment involving the first family. Not the case! After a few minutes of procuring some ice cream, the entourage disappeared. Whoever was eating the ice cream would not be doing it inside Thomas Sweet's air conditioned bliss.

After City Desk told the Thomas Sweet crew we were there to interview the D.C. Council chairman, the one Secret Service guy lingering around left as well.

Gray was running late. But he had a very good reason: Earlier in the day, there was an attempted burglary at the chairman's Hillcrest residence across town. We're waiting on an official statement from the campaign on the attempted break-in, but Gray told City Desk that the would-be crooks weren't able to gain access to his home. Police are investigating.

"They probably heard the alarm and I guess they took off. ... They never got in," Gray told us. "I don't know who did this this, but I don't put aside any possibility to tell you the truth."