Suspect in bat attack on congressman’s staff refuses to appear at arraignment

A 49-year-old Virginia man accused of attacking two staff members at Rep. Gerry Connolly's office with a metal baseball bat refused to appear at his arraignment Tuesday.

Xuan Kha Tran Pham, a resident of Fairfax County, was identified as the suspect in the attack, U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement Monday. Connolly wasn’t in his office at the time, police said.

Fairfax City police said one officer sustained a minor injury and was receiving medical treatment. Pham was arrested within five minutes of police having received an emergency call and is being held at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center without bond, the police said.

Pham refused to appear for his arraignment by video conference from the jail before Judge Susan Earman, of the county's general district court.

Pham allegedly hit two staffers with a metal bat and also damaged parts of the office, breaking glass and shattering computers, according to Connolly’s chief of staff, Jamie Smith.

Pham was arraigned on four charges, three felonies and one misdemeanor. The felony charges were one count of aggravated malicious wounding, one count of malicious wounding and one count of destruction of property. He was also charged with one count of a hate crime, a misdemeanor, for a statement Pham allegedly made to a woman in her car minutes before the attack on Connolly's staff. Fairfax County Police said he asked the woman if she was white before hitting her windshield with the bat and running away, The Associated Press reported.

Pham will be given a court-appointed attorney and has a preliminary hearing on July 17 at 2 p.m.

Lawmakers of all stripes and others went to Connolly on Tuesday to express sympathy and support, including Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn.

Connolly told NBC News that his remaining staff members Tuesday morning had to clean up “blood and glass.” He said that perhaps Congress should provide cleaning services after such attacks.

“It just seems to me my staff ... it just adds to the trauma that the morning after they’re cleaning up blood and glass from a rampage by this individual,” Connolly said. “I wish somehow that burden didn’t fall on them.”

Connolly said his wife joined staff members in the clean-up. “I would have done it, but I had to come here. But she wanted to relieve the burden of staff, if she could,” he added.

One of the victims of the attack is an intern who was on her first day on the job. It’s unclear who the other injured staffer is. Connolly later told reporters on Capitol Hill that he had visited the two staffers in the hospital and that they had both been released.

In response to the attack, Mark Bednar, a spokesman for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday that the speaker "has made clear his expectation that politics must be separated from security and has empowered the House Sergeant at Arms to work with US Capitol Police to protect all Members of Congress as they deem necessary."

McCarthy told NBC News on Tuesday that he spoke with Connolly on Monday night. Asked if he has concerns about members' security, McCarthy said, “I talked to the congressman about that too, especially in the district offices.”

“I mean, it’s always a fear,” McCarthy said. “I know our office had to change, the district office as well. It’s something you have to be continually cognizant of. What we’ve done in the past is we put more money in where people could protect and look at their district offices. But it’s something everybody has to be able to be cognizant of, and we’ll continue to follow it.”

Pham sued the CIA last year claiming it had been “wrongfully imprisoning [him] in a lower perspective based on physics” and alleging that he is being “brutally tortured … from the fourth dimension.”

The complaint, which seeks $29 million in damages, aligns with the beliefs of conspiracy theorists who claim they are being “gangstalked,” or secretly watched and psychologically tortured using nonexistent technology. Pham asked to be “cured” by an unstated “digital technology.” The CIA moved to dismiss the trial last month. Pham is representing himself in the case.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com