A few months ago, the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., suffered a deadly attack during which a Capitol police officer was killed. Now, as lawmakers are debating how much security is still needed at the Capitol, another attack happened Friday when a man rammed his car into a barrier near the Capitol building and then reportedly lunged at officers with a knife. One Capitol police officer was killed in the attack and another was injured. The attacker was also killed after being shot by police officers responding to the attack.
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CNN reports that the officer who was killed has been identified as 18-year police veteran William Evans, according to the Capitol police department’s acting chief Yogananda Pittman.
“It is with profound sadness that I share the news of the passing of Officer William ‘Billy’ Evans this afternoon from injuries he sustained following an attack at the North Barricade by a lone assailant,” Pittman said in a statement.
The attacker has also been identified as 25-year-old Noah Green. The investigation into the incident is still ongoing, but so far officials have said that there is no indication that the attack was related to terrorism.
What is interesting, however, is that investigators reviewed Green’s social media activity and found that weeks before the attack, he posted about losing his job and that he “suffered medical ailments,” CNN reports. He also said he believed the federal government was targeting him with “mind control.”
Green, who was Black, also posted a series of Instagram stories just hours before he was killed, one of which was captioned, “The U.S. Government is the #1 enemy of Black people!”
He also posted links to speeches by Minister Louis Farrakhan and last week, he wrote that he believed Farrakhan had saved him “after the terrible afflictions I have suffered presumably by the CIA and FBI, government agencies of the United States of America.”
Side note: You can expect conservatives to have a field day with this information and blame Black Lives Matter without any acknowledgment of the fact that, well, the U.S. is oppressive to Black people. Later, those same conservatives will rail against the politicizing of senseless tragedies.
As I stated earlier, the attack on Friday will likely affect the conversation in regards to the future of Capitol security.
From CNN:
It remains to be seen how Friday’s attack might impact longer-term plans regarding security at the Capitol, a topic that has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks as many lawmakers and staff hoped to reclaim some sense of normalcy despite ongoing congressional investigations into the failures around the January 6 attack.
Barbed wire fencing that surrounded the Capitol complex for months after pro-Trump rioters stormed the building has since come down and thousands of the National Guard troops who were deployed in response to the insurrection have since returned home, though thousands still remain in Washington and were seen responding to Friday’s attack.
The National Guard later confirmed Friday it had been deployed to the Capitol.
“The DC National Guard deployed a Immediate Response Force (IRF) composed of National Guard soldiers and airmen to the Capitol complex this afternoon to support the U.S. Capitol Police. Due to operational security, we cannot discuss further details regarding the IRF,” the National Guard said in a tweet.
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