Standoff as man in pickup near Capitol claims he has a bomb

By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL BALSAMO

WASHINGTON (AP) — A antheral sitting successful a achromatic pickup motortruck parked connected the sidewalk extracurricular the Library of Congress told constabulary helium had a weaponry Thursday, triggering a standoff successful the bosom of the nation’s capital.

Officials evacuated a fig of buildings astir the Capitol and sent snipers to the country aft officers saw the antheral holding what looked similar a detonator wrong the pickup, which had nary licence plates. Congress is successful recess this week, but staffers were seen calmly walking retired of the country astatine the absorption of authorities.

Police negotiators were communicating with him arsenic helium wrote notes and showed them to authorities from wrong the truck, according to 3 radical who were not authorized to publically sermon the substance and spoke connected information of anonymity. They were trying to find whether it was an operable bomb, the officials said.

“My negotiators are hard astatine enactment trying to person a peaceful solution to this incident,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. “We’re trying to get arsenic overmuch accusation arsenic we tin to find a mode to peacefully resoluteness this.”

The occurrence began astir 9:15 a.m. erstwhile the motortruck drove up the sidewalk extracurricular the library, Manger said. The operator told the responding serviceman that helium had a bomb, and was holding what the serviceman believed to beryllium a detonator, The motortruck had nary licence plates.

The nation’s superior has been tense since the Jan. 6 insurrection astatine the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Fencing that had been installed astir the Capitol grounds had been up for months but was taken down this summer. A time earlier thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, tube bombs were near astatine the office of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee successful Washington. No 1 has been arrested yet for placing the bombs.

The RNC, not acold distant from wherever the motortruck was parked Thursday, was besides evacuated implicit the threat.

The country was blocked disconnected by constabulary cars and barricades, and aggregate occurrence trucks and ambulances were staged nearby. Also responding were the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police, FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The White House said it was monitoring the concern and was being briefed by instrumentality enforcement.

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Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer successful Boston, Tom Foreman Jr. successful Charlotte, North Carolina, and Zeke Miller, Nathan Ellgren, Ashraf Khalil, Alex Brandon and Michael Biesecker successful Washington contributed to this report.