The Sussex County Democratic Committee is relieved to hear that both our counties congressional members are safe in the midst of this ongoing situation at the Capitol. Once again we find ourselves praying for the lives of Capitol Hill police officers and their families.
Capitol Police Officer William F. Evans was killed and a second officer was injured after being rammed by a vehicle at the heavily guarded northern entrance to the U.S. Capitol on Friday, the acting chief of the Capitol Police said. The suspect was shot and killed.
Officer Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force who served with the department’s first responder unit and was known to friends as Billy, was injured in the violent confrontation and died shortly after, the chief, Yogananda D. Pittman, said in a statement.
“It is with a very, very heavy heart that I announce one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries,” Ms. Pittman said at a news conference near the scene of the attack, her voice choked with emotion. “I just ask that the public continue to keep U.S. Capitol Police and their families in your prayers.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Officer Evans “a martyr for our democracy.”
The other officer was in “stable and nonthreatening condition,” the Capitol Police said on Friday evening.
After ramming the officers, the attacker “exited the vehicle with a knife in hand” and began “lunging” at the officers, Ms. Pittman said at the news conference. The suspect was subsequently identified by a senior law enforcement official as Noah Green, 25, of Indiana.
Investigators do not yet know the motive for the attack, but do not believe it was “terrorism-related” at this time, Chief Robert J. Contee III of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department told reporters.
Ms. Pittman did not identify Mr. Green, but said that the driver had not been previously known to her agency. On his Facebook page, which has since been taken down, Mr. Green described himself as a supporter of the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and said he had been struggling through the last few months of the pandemic.
The attack was the most serious security threat at the Capitol since the deadly Jan. 6 riot that injured dozens and killed five people. A National Guard quick-response team, which was deployed after the riot, and the local police were on hand at the already heavily fortified Capitol complex.
President Biden ordered flags at the White House to be flown at half-staff in honor of Officer Evans, and Ms. Pelosi ordered the same at the Capitol.
Mr. Biden, who had left Washington to go to Camp David before the attack, said in a statement that he was receiving “ongoing briefings” from his homeland security adviser.
“Jill and I were heartbroken to learn of the violent attack at a security checkpoint on the U.S. Capitol grounds, which killed Officer William Evans of the U.S. Capitol Police and left a fellow officer fighting for his life,” Mr. Biden said. “We send our heartfelt condolences to Officer Evans’s family and everyone grieving his loss. We know what a difficult time this has been for the Capitol, everyone who works there and those who protect it.”
In recent days, some Republicans, citing the diminished threat of violence at the Capitol, had called for scaling back some security measures. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, complained last month that the cordon of fencing and armed soldiers were “overdone,” and said the militarized atmosphere reminded him of his “last visit to Kabul” in 2015.
On Friday, he praised the Capitol Police.
“Once again, brave officers of the United States Capitol Police have been violently attacked while simply doing their job,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement, adding, “We could not be more grateful for the professionalism and heroism of the officers who neutralized this threat at the checkpoint and for the entire U.S.C.P. force, who have had to endure so much in just a few short months.”
The Capitol went into lockdown around 1 p.m. on what had been a quiet, sunny Friday, with the police instructing staff to remain inside, away from doors and windows, and to “seek cover” if they were outside, citing an unspecified “external security threat.”
To read more, follow the NYT link here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/us-capitol-lockdown-police-attack.html?fbclid=IwAR2odSbvmTAbyrq-JILqyAgvhzm3VW0zV9XUbOMm4TZG-Z0aem841kgEyxk
