A man with a metal baseball bat attacked two of Representative Gerry Connolly’s (D., Va.) staffers Monday at his district office in Fairfax.
The Fairfax City Police Department identified the suspect in a statement as 49-year-old Xuan Kha Tran Pham of Fairfax, Virginia. Police took about five minutes to respond to the emergency call for help and the assailant was placed in custody. The attacker is now facing charges of Aggravated Malicious Wounding and Malicious Wounding.
Connolly explained in a statement that the attacker “asked for me before committing an act of violence.” Both staffers were transferred to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
“The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating,” the Virginia representative explained. “Right now, our focus is on ensuring they are receiving the care they need.”
In an interview with CNN later in the day, Connolly provided additional details. The individual was a constituent from Connolly’s district who the representative said he didn’t know. The attacker hit one senior aide in the head and also hit an intern on her first day on the job.
The assailant also caused widespread damage to the office, shattering glass in the conference room and breaking computers. “He was filled with out-of-control rage,” said Connolly, who was at a ribbon cutting at the time.
The motive is unknown.
It is the latest in a string of attacks on members of Congress and those around them.
In March, an aide to Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) was stabbed in the head and torso by a just-released convict in D.C., according to the New York Post. The aide survived after a number of surgeries. A month earlier, a man attacked Representative Angie Craig (D., Minn.) in an elevator in her D.C. apartment building. Craig told the Minneapolis NBC outlet that her attacker punched her in the face and grabbed her by the neck. “He wasn’t going to let me out of that elevator if I hadn’t fought my way out,” Craig said.
Last October, the husband of then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was struck in the head with a hammer in the couple’s San Francisco home, surviving.