A man allegedly set his car on fire and drove into a U.S. Capitol barricade before firing a weapon and shooting himself Saturday night.
The man remains unidentified and there were no other repeated injuries.
U.S. Capitol Police released a statement Sunday morning saying “Just after 4:00 a.m., a man drove his car into the vehicle barricade at East Capitol Street and Second Street. While the man was getting out of the car, it became engulfed in flames.”
“The man then fired several shots into the air along East Capitol Street. When our officers heard the sound of gunfire, they immediately responded and were approaching the man when he shot himself. Nobody else was hurt,” the statement continued.
Capitol police said they do not believe the man was targeting members of Congress and no officers fired their weapons.
Both the House and Senate are in recess and only a few staff members work in the Capitol complex at that hour.
Their “investigators are looking into the man’s background” and “DC’s Metropolitan Police Department is handling the death investigation.”
The incident is similar to one from April 2021, when a man drove a vehicle into two Capitol Police officers at a checkpoint.
The driver, Noah Green, killed one police officer and wounded another after crashing into the barricade.
William “Billy” Evans, a member of USCP for 18 years, was the officer that died. The other USCP officer was struck by the car but survived.
