Los Angeles Times

Man charged in attack on lawmaker’s staff

The Virginia suspect is accused in a pair of incidents. His dad says he has schizophre­nia.

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FAIRFAX, Va. — A man with untreated schizophre­nia, according to his father, was arraigned Tuesday on charges involving baseball bat attacks on three women, including two staffers for U.S. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.).

Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax heard the charges by video hookup from the Fairfax County jail. A judge ordered him held without bond pending a preliminar­y hearing in July.

The four counts include aggravated wounding and malicious aggravated wounding in the attack at

Connolly’s district office in Fairfax, and counts of felony destroying property and misdemeano­r hate crime for an episode less than an hour earlier, when police say he hit a car windshield with a bat and chased a woman after asking if she was white.

The U.S. Capitol Police and Fairfax City Police said they are jointly investigat­ing the case, and the suspect’s motivation­s aren’t clear.

Pham’s father, Hy Pham, told the Washington Post that his son was diagnosed with schizophre­nia and has been dealing with mental illness since his late teens. He also said he has been trying without success to arrange mental health care for his son. The father could not immediatel­y be reached by the Associated Press.

Connolly, who wasn’t in the office at the time, said in an interview that an intern working her first day on the job was struck in her side and an outreach director was hit on the head. Both were released after hospital treatment.

“It does underscore for all of us the vulnerabil­ity potentiall­y of our district offices because we don’t have the level of security we have here on Capitol Hill,” said Connolly, who is now in his eighth term representi­ng his district in the Washington suburbs.

One Fairfax police officer involved in detaining Pham on Monday also received treatment, for a minor injury, said Sgt. Lisa Gardner, a police spokespers­on.

Other officers sustained minor injuries in January 2022 when they responded to a call from Pham saying he wished to harm others, Fairfax police said.

Charges of assault on a

‘It does underscore for all of us the vulnerabil­ity ... of our district offices because we don’t have the level of security we have here on Capitol Hill.’

— U.S. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.)

law enforcemen­t officer, resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a law enforcemen­t officer were dropped in September after he complied with conditions requiring him to seek treatment, according to a person with the Fairfax County commonweal­th’s attorney’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity because Pham now has an ongoing criminal case.

During that time — in May 2022 — Pham sued the CIA in federal court, claiming that the agency had been torturing him “from the fourth dimension,” court records show.

Since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, threats to lawmakers and their families have increased sharply. The Capitol Police investigat­ed about 7,500 cases of potential threats against members of Congress in 2022.

The year before, they investigat­ed about 10,000 threats to members, more than twice the number from four years earlier.

In October, a man broke into the San Francisco home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DSan Francisco), demanding to speak with her, before he struck her husband, Paul, over the head with a hammer.

 ?? Fairfax City Police Department ?? XUAN-KHA Tran Pham, 49, faces several charges.
Fairfax City Police Department XUAN-KHA Tran Pham, 49, faces several charges.

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