Virginia: Man with baseball bat attacks US legislator US News
A man with a metal baseball bat asked for one US lawmakers in his office and then attacked two of his employees.
Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia and police said the attacker went to his office in the northern part of the state on Monday and punched two of his employees, including an intern on her first day.
“This morning a person armed with a baseball entered my district office and called for me before committing an act of violence against two of my employees.” specified connolly
The suspect was arrested and both Connolly workers were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
“The thought that someone would take advantage of the accessibility of my staff to commit an act of violence is ruthless and devastating,” Connolly said.
Fairfax City Police arrived minutes after the attack and took the suspect into custody without incident.
Thanking the police and medical professionals “for their quick response,” Connolly said he has the “best team in Congress” that is “available to voters and members of the public every day.”
“Right now our focus is to make sure they get the care they need,” he explained.
The suspect was known to police officers and “never made threats against us, so the act was unprovoked, unexpected and inexplicable,” Connolly said.
“I have no reason to believe his motivation was politically motivated, but it’s possible that the kind of toxic political environment we all live in angered him,” Connolly said. “And I would just hope that we all take a little more time to be careful about what we say and how we say it.”
Police identified the suspect as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax. He was charged with malicious assault and aggravated malicious assault and is being held without bail at Fairfax County Adult Prison.
The incident came more than six months after the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Paul Pelosi was struck down by a man who was looking for her at her home in San Francisco. Nancy was not home when the suspect, David DePape, began beating her husband before police intervened.
Contact our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, Check out our news page.