Congressman says the man who attacked his staff with a metal bat was looking for him

When Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly learned that someone had attacked his staff with a metal baseball bat, he said his first emotion was shock.

That was followed quickly by the intense concern for the director of outreach and the new intern, who were both injured in the attack at Connolly’s district office in Fairfax, Va.

“And then I had a strange emotion, I guess. I felt some guilt,” Connolly said As it happens hosted by Nil Koksal.

“This person came to ask for me. And my staff suffered physical harm because they did not work for me. And that may seem strange, but I felt bad for them who took, you know, the blow that was intended for me.”

The two women injured in the attack have been treated for non-life-threatening injuries and released from hospital. A 49-year-old man – who is known to police, and has a history of mental illness – was arrested.

The case has raised concerns about physical violence aimed at US lawmakers, as well as people’s ability to access mental health support.

First day on the job

Connolly, a Democratic U.S. representative, said someone showed up at his office Monday looking for him. The man had been in contact with his office before, he said, but never made any threats.

Intern Connolly – who was only an hour into her first day on the job – informed him that the congressman was away at the event.

“Then he started blowing her up,” Connolly said. “Then he turned his attention to my director of outreach, and hit him in the head.”

The third staff, he said, managed to get the others to the safe room and call 911. Then the attackers started smashing up the office with a bat, destroying computers, putting holes in the walls and breaking glass.

Police showed up on the scene in five minutes, Connolly said, subdued him and took him into custody.

They were still cleaning blood from the carpet as of Tuesday, Connolly said.

Connolly said he visited the injured staff at the hospital on Monday, and that they were doing “as well as could be expected.”

“But, clearly, he is still shocked. And I think that after a long time, all kinds of emotions will appear. he said.

“We’re going to talk about it. We’re going to get professional help. We’re going to make sure people have what they need.”

History of violence, lack of support

The man arrested for the attack did not get the help he needed, according to his father, who lived with him.

U.S. Capitol Police and Fairfax City Police identified the attacker as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax. He is being held without bond on charges of malicious wounding and malicious wounding. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Pham’s father, Hy Pham, told the Washington Post his son is schizophrenic and has dealt with mental illness since his late teens. She had unsuccessfully tried to arrange mental health care for her son.

“He blamed the FBI because he was sick,” his father said. “He blames the Navy for getting him sick.”

Police have also identified the accused as a suspect in another attack on Monday. He said a man approached a woman parked in a car about eight kilometers away from Connolly’s office at 10:37 a.m., asked if she was white, hit the windshield with a bat and drove away. The woman was not injured.

He was also charged last year with assaulting a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and attempting to destroy a law enforcement office. The charges were later dropped.

In May 2022, a person whose name and community of residence matched the alleged attacker sued the Central Intelligence Agency in federal court. In the handwritten complaint, the plaintiff alleged that the CIA had “wrongly imprisoned me in a lower perspective” and “brutally tortured me with continuous disability from 1988 to the present from the fourth dimension.”

Violence against politicians

Connolly said he had no reason to believe the attack was politically motivated, but told The Associated Press that “the toxic political environment we live in” may have “stopped him.”

In an interview with the CBC, Connolly said the attack made him concerned about the rise in violence against elected officials in the US.

Since January 6, 2021, the attack on the US Capitol, the threat to members of parliament and their families has increased. The US Capitol Police investigated 10,000 threats against members that year, more than double from the previous four years. They are investigating about 7,500 cases by 2022.

In October, a man broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home in San Francisco, demanding to speak to her, before hitting her husband, Paul, over the head with a hammer.

“Political violence in a constitutional democracy is never justified. That’s why we invented the ballot box. We solve our problems through free and fair elections,” said Connolly.

“It bothers me that there is a different sort of threshold today for the acceptability of violent rhetoric, violent images that can lead to violence itself. That cannot be the answer.”