Two staffers have been attacked on Monday morning contained in the Fairfax, Virginia, workplace of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.).
Police stated the suspect, Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, is going through prices of 1 depend of felony aggravated malicious wounding and one depend of malicious wounding. No motive has been revealed, and the suspect is being held with out bond.
The incident started at 10:30 a.m., when the suspect entered the workplace with a metallic baseball bat and hit two folks within the higher physique, police stated. In an interview with The Washington Put up, Connolly stated the suspect turned offended when he realized the congressman wasn’t there, and “went on a rampage,” smashing a number of home windows and a pc.
Connolly’s outreach director and an intern have been harmed within the assault, with each handled for severe however non-life-threatening accidents. The suspect’s father stated his son struggled with psychological sickness and he was attempting to get him psychological well being care, the Put up reported. The New York Instances discovered that in 2022, Pham filed a federal lawsuit towards the CIA and claimed he was imprisoned for many years by the company and being “brutally tortured” with a “degenerative incapacity” from the “fourth dimension.”
Within the final a number of years, there was an increase within the variety of threats made towards members of Congress. The Capitol Police stated in 2017, there have been fewer than 4,000 threats, and in 2022, greater than 7,500 threats have been reported. Of these 7,500 instances, the Capitol Police’s Risk Evaluation Part determined 313 have been severe threats, and prosecutors filed prices in simply 22 situations, the Put up reported.