Pressure cooker left near Capitol destroyed

Abomb squad safely destroyed a pressure cooker found in a “suspicious” vehicle left unattended Sunday afternoon on the National Mall near the US Capitol building and the vehicle’s owner was located and arrested, a US Capitol Police spokeswoman said.

Police Lt. Kimberly A. Schneider said Capitol Police officers on routine patrol spotted the parked, unoccupied vehicle on a street on the mall west of the Capitol around 5pm on Sunday.

“Further investigation revealed a pressure cooker, and an odour of gasoline was detected,” Schneider said, adding a Capitol Police bomb squad was called in because the vehicle was deemed “suspicious in nature”.

She said the squad known as the Hazardous Devices Section destroyed “items of concern in the vehicle including the pressure cooker” at about 7.45pm after temporarily closing off the area on the long Memorial Day holiday weekend. She did not immediately identify the other items but said only that “this safe disruption produced a loud ‘bang’.

Asked if the “disruption” involved controlled detonation of the items, she said that was accurate.

She also said that followup searching of the vehicle detected “nothing hazardous.” Her email said the suspicious vehicle was investigated during a Memorial Day Concert in Washington though it was unclear how many people were nearby at the time.

She said the bomb squad intervention came after authorities had set up a security perimeter around the site on 3rd Street in the nation’s capital. She said that street was temporarily closed between Independence Avenue and Constitution Avenue while authorities investigated.