Washington woke up on Saturday shaken by another deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, an incident that left a policeman and a suspect dead and messed with the memories of January 6, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the building in an attempt to topple the election.
Friday’s incident was on a much smaller scale, but it still spread confusion and fear. In the early afternoon, a man crashed his vehicle into two Capitol police officers standing in front of a barricade. Getting out of the vehicle, the suspect then charged the police with a knife. He was shot dead.
Yogananda Pittman, acting chief of police at the Capitol, told reporters that two policemen were taken to the hospital after the attack. One of them, William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the department and the father of two young children, died of his injuries.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Evans a “martyr to democracy”.
“America’s heart was broken by the tragic and heroic death of one of our Capitol Police heroes,” said Pelosi in a statement. “Once again, these heroes risked their lives to protect our Capitol and our country, with the same extraordinary selflessness and spirit of service seen on January 6.
“On behalf of the whole House, we are deeply grateful.”
A neighbor of Evans, Bob Epskamp, told the Washington Post that he was a “loving and caring father”. After the Capitol insurrection, he said, he told Evans that “I was happy to be lucky not to be on duty that day.”
Police did not immediately identify the suspect and the reason remained unclear. Several media outlets, however, called the striker Noah Green, who was 25 and was from Indiana.
Friends and family have told the media that they have been concerned about Green’s mental health in recent years, especially after he posted disturbing comments on social media.
Green’s Facebook profile was public until it was suspended on Friday. Two weeks before the Capitol attack, he reportedly wrote: “These past few years have been difficult, and the past few months have been more difficult.
“I was tested in some of the biggest and most unimaginable tests of my life. I am currently unemployed after I quit my job, partly due to affiliations, but ultimately looking for a spiritual journey. “
Green grew up in Virginia and played football in college. Andre Toran, a former teammate, told USA Today that he was a “very quiet guy” who occasionally told jokes with the team, but mostly smiled when listening to conversations.
“I know people say that all the time, but the guy I played with is not the same person who did it,” said Toran.
According to other friends and family, Green became paranoid after claiming that he had been drugged with Xanax by former roommates. The experience, he said, made him addicted to the drug and led to withdrawal symptoms.
Toran showed USA Today a Facebook post that he said Green wrote during the pandemic, in which Green said withdrawal symptoms included seizures, poor appetite, paranoia, depression and suicidal ideation.
Green’s brother told the Washington Post that Green moved after college, going from Virginia to Indianapolis and even to Botswana. Green went to live with his brother two weeks before attacking the Capitol, said his brother, and in the hours before the attack he sent a text message that said: “I’m sorry, but I’m going to live and be homeless. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I admired you when you were a child. You inspired me a lot. “
On his Facebook page, Green claimed to be a follower of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, and said that his faith in Farrakhan and the extremist group was “one of the only things that was able to take me through those times”.
The Nation of Islam is designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, for its “deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leader”.
On Friday, interim metropolitan police chief Robert Contee said the attack did not appear to be related to terrorism, although the police were still investigating.
Only three months have passed since the January 6 breach of the Capitol by hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump. Then lawmakers, officials and journalists were forced to hide while protesters roamed the building, allegedly looking for politicians to kidnap and even kill, until the police managed to clean the building.
Five people, including a United States Capitol police officer who faced protesters, were killed. At least 350 people have been indicted in connection with the attack.
Security around the Capitol has increased a lot. A high fence now surrounds the building, and thousands of members of the national guard are stationed in the area. The National Guard plans to stay on Capitol Hill until May at the request of the United States Capitol Police, whose small force struggled to cope with the January riot.
Although Friday’s attack was much smaller in scale, it renewed concerns about Capitol being a target of violence.
Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, was on Capitol Hill on Friday, despite the fact that most deputies and senators were absent at Easter.
He told MSNBC: “The question we have to ask is what is happening in our country, where we have people coming, trying to use violence and knives and weapons [at] the heart of American democracy. “