Driver is shot after killing Capitol cop
Knifeman ran over officer before being fatally wounded
A KNIFE-WIELDING driver ran over and killed a police officer before being shot dead outside the US Capitol yesterday.
The man’s car slammed into two officers before hitting a barricade near the same building stormed by rioters after a speech by Donald Trump in January.
The driver jumped out with a knife before ‘lunging’ at those in uniform closest to him, said acting chief of the Capitol police force Yogananda Pittman. She told a press conference: ‘He exited the vehicle with a knife. We engaged but he did not respond.
‘He did start to lunge towards police officers, at which time they fired upon the suspect.
‘It is with a very, very heavy heart that I say one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries.
‘I just ask that the public continue to keep U.S. Capitol Police and their families in your prayers,” Pittman said. ‘This has been an extremely difficult time for U.S. Capitol Police after the events of January 6 and now the events that have occurred here today.’
No details were released about the fallen officer. Police said they were not treating the attack as terrorism at the moment but would continue investigating.
Congress is on recess so it was mostly empty apart from a handful of politicians and staff, who were told the building was being locked down due to an ‘external security threat’.
A PA announcement told everyone to stay indoors and away from windows after the sound of gunshots rang out. Democrat congressman Ro Khanna said he left his Washington office for lunch, then panicked staff called telling him to stay away.
Referring to the Capitol insurrection, he told CNN: ‘Honestly, it did bring back memories of January 6. There is a sense that now simply going to work is something that has become dangerous.
‘I can’t imagine saying that going to the Capitol to represent your constituents is actually a dangerous thing. It’s deeply saddening.’
The attack came more than a week after officials removed a second barbed wire-topped fence around the Capitol and reopened local streets to traffic for the first time since before Joe Biden’s January inauguration.
Mr Biden left Washington earlier yesterday to spend Easter at presidential retreat Camp David.
Before the January riot, Mr Trump – who repeatedly contested the election result – had encouraged his supporters to ‘fight like hell’. He denied responsibility for the insurrection, which left five dead, including a police officer.
The attack occurred about 91m from the entrance of the building on the Senate side of the Capitol.
One witness, the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, said he was finishing a Good Friday service nearby when he heard three shots ring out.
It comes as the Washington region remains on edge nearly three months after a mob of armed insurrectionists stormed the Capitol as Congress was voting to certify Joe Biden’s presidential win. Five people died in the January 6 riot, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was among a badly outnumbered force trying to fight off insurrectionists seeking to overturn the election.
Authorities installed a tall perimeter fence around the Capitol and for months restricted traffic along the roads closest to the building, but they had begun pulling back some of the emergency measures in recent weeks.
Fencing that prevented vehicular traffic near that area was recently removed.
Pittman said the suspect did not appear to have been on the police’s radar. But the attack underscores that the building and campus – and the officers charged with protecting them – remain potential targets for violence.
The officer who died yesterday is the seventh Capitol Police member to die in the line of duty in the department’s history.
Two officers, one from Capitol Police and another from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, died by suicide following the January 6 attack.
Not treating attack as terrorism
Heard three shots ring out