The United States Capitol Police announced Thursday afternoon that they arrested a man who claimed to be driving an explosive-laden truck after an hours-long standoff on the Capitol grounds, near the Library of Congress.
The man, whose name has been withheld pursuant to longstanding Daily Wire policy, was safely taken into custody Thursday afternoon around 2:15pm after a standoff with Capitol police and other federal law enforcement officials. The man reportedly was broadcasting his bomb threats over Facebook, according to Fox News.
Facebook said in its own statement on Thursday that they moved quickly to take down the suspect’s Facebook Live stream.
“We are in contact with law enforcement,” a spokesperson told Politico. “Our teams are working to identify, remove, and block any other instances of the suspect’s videos which do not condemn, neutrally discuss the incident or provide neutral news coverage of the issue.”
It is not immediately clear, according to police, whether the man, who claimed to have enough “ammonium nitrate” to level two city blocks was actually in possession of explosives. An Associated Press reporter noted on social media Thursday that investigators “are trying to determine whether the suspicious device in the pickup truck is an operable explosive and whether the man in the truck was holding a detonator.”
“The suspect who authorities say claimed to have a bomb in his pickup truck Thursday morning surrendered to police and is in their custody hours after parking his vehicle in front of Washington, D.C.’s Library of Congress – prompting evacuations and lockdowns in the area,” the outlet reported.
The suspect “was taken into custody at about 2:15 p.m. local time – approximately five hours after police received a report of a suspicious vehicle parked in the area of Independence Avenue and First Street, officials said,” Fox continued. Federal authorities told media that they had also visited the suspect’s North Carolina home looking for information.
Although the suspect reportedly spoke about political topics on his lifestream — demanding the opportunity to speak with President Joe Biden and suggesting that he wanted to start a “revolution” — United States Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger said that the man had recently experienced “losses of family” and that officers were in contact with the man’s relatives.
According to an earlier press conference with Capitol Police officials, officers responded to reports of a truck parked in front of the Library of Congress early Thursday morning.
“The driver of the truck told the responding officer on the scene that he had a bomb. And what appeared, the officer said, appeared to be a detonator in the man’s hand,” Manger told media. “We immediately evacuated the nearby buildings.”
Congressional staff, located in the nearby Cannon House Office Building, were told to seek shelter. Some nearby buildings were also evacuated but the United States Capitol, the scene of the January 6th riots, was not affected. The man ultimately surrendered “peacefully” per the New York Times.
“As far as we can tell it was just his decision to surrender,” Manger said.
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Source: Dailywire
