April 2 (UPI) — Authorities put the U.S. Capitol complex on lockdown Friday after a car rammed into a barricade, leaving a police officer and a suspect dead, authorities said.
The attacker drove into a barricade north of the Capitol, at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Delaware Avenue, Yogananda Pittman, acting chief of Capitol Police, said in a news conference. Officers shot the driver after he got out of his vehicle with a knife and ran “aggressively toward officers,” she added.
“It is with a very, very heavy heart that I announce that one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries,” Pittman told reporters.
The officer killed was later identified as William “Billy” Evans.
A second Capitol Police officer was injured and was transported to an area hospital. Neither officers’ name has been released, pending notification of family.
Capitol Police locked down all buildings in the complex and shut down streets in the area.
Acting Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said there wasn’t an ongoing threat and the attack didn’t appear to be terrorism-related.
“But obviously we’ll continue to investigate to see if there is some type of nexus along those lines,” he told reporters.
Drew Hammill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, said she ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of the slain officer.
“Speaker Pelosi has ordered the flags at the U.S. Capitol to be flown at half-staff due to the death of a U.S. Capitol Police Officer in the of duty today,” he tweeted. “The process of lowering the flags may take longer than usual because of the Capitol’s current lockdown status.”
The incident comes nearly three months after thousands of former President Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died in the insurrection, and two others who responded to the incident — Capitol Police officer Howard Liebengood and Metropolitan Police officer Jeffrey Smith — died by suicide in the days after.
