A district office of Rep. Gerry Connolly’s (D-VA) was attacked earlier this week. On Monday, a man armed with a baseball bat attacked two staffers. Both were sent to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. It didn’t last long in the news after it became clear that the person was mentally unstable. The suspect in the attack was later identified as 49-year-old Xuan-Kha Tran Pham. On the day of the attack, he was reportedly looking for Rep. Connolly before being taken into custody by police (via Axios):
NEW: Cops ID Virginia Man Accused Of Attacking Congressional Staffers With Baseball Bat https://t.co/mdQrgKCDqj pic.twitter.com/RXFUYltCzp
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 15, 2023
Two members of Rep. Gerry Connolly's (D-Va.) staff were hospitalized on Monday morning after an assailant attacked them with a metal baseball bat, according to the Virginia congressman and law enforcement.
Driving the news: Connolly said the attacker entered his Fairfax, Virginia, office and "asked for me before committing an act of violence against two members of my staff."
The latest: The suspect was identified by Capitol Police as 49-year-old Xuan Kha Tran Pham, a Fairfax resident, whom they said was not known to the department beforehand. Their investigation is ongoing.
Pham was arraigned on four charges on Tuesday, two of which stemmed from the attack at Connolly’s district office and two more from an incident less than an hour before the office attack, according to AP.
[…]
The safety of our Members and of our staff remains of paramount importance, particularly given the increased instances of political violence in our country," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
As part of that, the source says, there can be security systems put in place for intrusion detection along with a video intercom.
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) May 16, 2023
The speaker’s office says that he has “empowered” the House’s top law enforcement official to work with Democrats.
“Speaker McCarthy has made clear his expectation that politics must be separated from security and has empowered the House Sergeant at Arms to work with US Capitol Police to protect all Members of Congress as they deem necessary,” McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar said.
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) May 16, 2023
Slow your roll, man. This wasn’t a politically motivated attack. The media cannot use anything to turn this against Republicans, so it was deep-sixed. The media moved on doing damage control for Democrats with the release of the Durham report, which concluded that the FBI had zero evidence of Russian collusion when they started investigating Donald Trump.
The suspect’s father said he’s suffering from schizophrenia, and this isn’t the first time he’s acted violently. He was chasing a woman moments before he attacked the congressman’s office (via NY Post):
Chilling video footage shows a screaming woman fleeing a baseball bat-wielding man — moments before he allegedly stormed Rep. Gerry Connolly’s Virginia office, attacking two staffers and injuring a cop.
The door-cam clip emerged as it was revealed that the 49-year-old suspect, Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, has a history of mental illness — including a previous attack on police in which he tried to take a gun.
Monday’s video showed the woman, dressed all in black, screaming in clear terror as she flees through a yard in Fairfax County just moments before the rampage at Connolly’s nearby district office.
Her pursuer eventually gives up the chase, walking back with the metal bat in hand as the shocked woman screams, “What is he doing?”
Police later identified him as Pham, saying he stopped a woman in her car — then smashed her windshield after asking if she was white.
The man was mentally ill. There’s no wider objective or motive here.