The area of the Library of Congress, located next to the Congress building and the Supreme Court, was evacuated, and police sent in snipers while negotiating with the man.
The man crawled out of the car five hours after he parked his car on the sidewalk at the Library of Congress, and surrendered to police.
The police communicated with the man by writing down what he wanted to say on pieces of paper and showing them. He drove the car, which has no signs, up the sidewalk at the Library of Congress and parked there just over nine o’clock Thursday morning.
– My people are working intensely to resolve this episode peacefully, said the head of the congressional police, J. Thomas Manger.
US media reported that the man in the pickup came with a bomb threat. The man was holding something that could look like a trigger mechanism, but there was no visible bomb on the car.
A man who is probably the man in the black pickup, posted a series of threats on Facebook and demanded to talk to President Joe Biden. Police have identified him as a North Carolina man.
The entire area, including one of Congress’ office buildings, was evacuated, but few politicians are in Washington since both chambers are on vacation this week.
Washington is still on its toes after the dramatic storming of the Congress building in January. It is only a month since most of the fences that were erected around Congress were removed.
The day before the storming of the Congress building, explosives were found outside the headquarters of both major US parties, and in April, a man was shot and killed as he tried to run down police officers at a roadblock near Congress.
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