An attack at the US Capitol complex in Washington DC has left one police officer dead and another in hospital with injuries after a car crashed into a security barrier on Friday.
Capitol Police shot dead the driver after he jumped out of the car and lunged at them with a knife. Authorities said the attack, which came three months after January’s deadly Capitol riots, did not appear to be terrorism-related.
“He did not respond to verbal commands. The suspect did start lunging toward US Capitol Police officers, at which time US Capitol Police officers fired upon the suspect,” said acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman.
“Whether the attack was at law enforcement, or whoever, we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it and we’ll do that,” said Robert Contee, acting chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.
President Joe Biden, who was with First Lady Jill Biden at Camp David for the Easter holiday, offered his ‘heartfelt condolences’ to the family of William Evans, the veteran policeman killed in the attack.
“Jill and I were heartbroken to learn of the violent attack at a security checkpoint on the US Capitol grounds,” Biden said in a statement.
US media said officials identified the attacker as Noah Green, a 25-year-old Black man from Indiana and an adherent of the black nationalist Nation of Islam movement.
Some of Green’s online postings in March suggested a level of despair and paranoia. He said he was unemployed and had health problems, and made references to biblical concepts of the end of times. He wrote that he had faced ‘unimaginable tests’ and was now ‘in search of a spiritual journey’. In one post he spoke of being tormented by the FBI and CIA, hospitalised and subjected to ‘mind control’, and called the government “the #1 enemy of Black people!”
He also said he was a follower of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who promotes Black nationalist, anti-white and anti-Semitic thinking.
According to videos shared on social media, a helicopter was spotted landing in the area to respond to the incident. National Guard troops were also seen lining up with their shields at various intersections near US Capitol.
Later the police said that lockdown was lifted and the USCP has “cleared the external security threat incident located at all of the US Capitol Campus buildings, however the area around the crime scene will continue to be restricted and individuals should continue to follow police direction.”
