Driver Rams Into Officers at Capitol, Killing One and Injuring Another (original) (raw)

Politics|Driver Rams Into Officers at Capitol, Killing One and Injuring Another

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/capitol-attack.html

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The attack shocked a Capitol slowly returning to normalcy after the Jan. 6 riot, raising new questions about securing the complex.

The U.S. Capitol went into lockdown on Friday after a driver killed one Capitol Police officer and injured another with a vehicle.Credit...Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

Published April 2, 2021Updated July 27, 2021

WASHINGTON — The band of razor wire-topped fencing around the Capitol had recently come down. The heavy National Guard presence had begun to thin.

But on Friday, not quite three months after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, a car came careening midday onto the Capitol grounds, slamming into two Capitol Police officers and leaving one of them dead and the other injured.

This time, the source of the violence was not an angry pro-Trump mob, but a lone driver, armed with a knife, who had recently told friends he had left his job and had “afflictions.” After crashing his car and menacing officers, he was shot and killed.

“It is with a very, very heavy heart that I announce one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries,” Yogananda D. Pittman, the acting Capitol Police chief, said during a news conference near the scene. “This has been an extremely difficult time for U.S. Capitol Police, after the events of Jan. 6 and now the events that have occurred here today.”

The attacker “exited the vehicle with a knife in hand” and began “lunging” at the officers, Ms. Pittman said. The suspect was subsequently identified by a senior law enforcement official as Noah R. Green, 25.

Investigators said they did not know a motive, but did not believe it was “terrorism related,” Robert J. Contee, the acting chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, told reporters. Congress was not in session on Friday, as lawmakers were scattered around the country for the holiday weekend.

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