Bat-wielding attacker bashes two staffers for Rep. Gerry Connolly at Virginia office
A baseball bat-wielding attacker wreaked havoc on Rep. Gerry Connolly’s district office in Virginia on Monday morning, the lawmaker said, calling the assault on two of his staffers “unconscionable and devastating.”
A senior aide was struck in the head and a freshly hired intern was hit in the side, according to ABC News.
“This morning an individual entered my district office armed with a baseball bat and asked for me before committing an act of violence against members of my staff,” the Democratic congressman said in a statement.
Capitol Police identified the suspect as 49-year-old Fairfax, Va., man Xuan Kha Tran Pham, who lives in Connolly’s district. He faces charges of aggravated malicious wounding and malicious wounding.
“My district office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day,” Connolly said. “The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”
The Fairfax Police Department confirmed the attack on Facebook.
“The staff members have been transported to local area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries,” according to law enforcement. “The suspect is in police custody.”
NBC News reported Pham filed a bizarre $29 million lawsuit against the CIA in 2022 claiming he was wrongly imprisoned and left him with a disability “till the present from the fourth dimension.”
Connolly is an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which led to a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. The northern Virginia representative is also a staunch defender of reproductive rights.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in an April 25 statement to the Senate Committee on Appropriations that the number of threats against members of Congress rose 400% over the past six years.
“Over the course of the last year, the world has continuously changed, becoming more violent and uncertain,” he claimed.
Manger — who became the Capitol Police top cop in July 2021— later testified that escalation was “One of the biggest challenges we face today.”
He previously led the Fairfax County police department.
Capitol Hill Police reported twice as many threats against members of Congress and their families in 2021 as in 2017.
The elderly husband of longtime House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was hospitalized after being attacked by a hammer-wielding man searching for the prominent Democratic lawmaker at their California home in October. She was in Washington D.C. at the time. Right-wing trolls mocked the 82-year-old victim and his wife after the attack.
Connolly is serving his seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
