The police closed off several streets and sent alerts to congressional staff members, prompting evacuations.
Emily Cochrane and
WASHINGTON — A man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck outside the Library of Congress surrendered to the police on Thursday, after hours of negotiations and evacuations of several government buildings in the area.
The man surrendered peacefully, according to a law enforcement official.
The man drove a black pickup onto the sidewalk of the Library of Congress at about 9:15 Thursday morning, and the police responded to a disturbance call, Chief J. Thomas Manger of the Capitol Police said in a news conference.
When the police arrived, the man said he had a bomb and one of the officers observed what appeared to be a detonator in his hand, Chief Manger said.
The police spent hours negotiating with the man, he said. It was unclear whether the man did actually have explosives.
“We don’t know what his motives are at this time,” Chief Manger said. He confirmed that some of those negotiations had been streamed live on social media.
“We’re trying to get as much information as we can to try to find a way to peacefully resolve this,” he said. Chief Manger declined to describe the conversation between the man and the negotiators.
The man, whom officials identified as a resident of Grover, N.C., named Floyd Ray Roseberry, about 50 years old, was making anti-government statements, according to a law enforcement official.
A spokesman for Facebook confirmed that the company had taken down a post with a video broadcast from man in the truck. In the rambling video, he addresses President Biden, demanding to speak with him or a representative, and sometimes shows a metal object in his lap. He describes himself as “a patriot” and expresses grievances with Democrats. He repeatedly says he does not want to die or hurt anyone but warns that the device will explode if the police fire at him, though the man offered no evidence to support that.
Source: Capitol Police Investigate ‘Bomb Threat’ Near Library of Congress – The New York Times
