Bomb scare at US Capitol: Man arrested after threatening to detonate explosives

Several buildings were evacuated near the US Capitol after a man drove up in a pick-up truck and threatened to detonate explosives.

A man has been taken into custody after driving up to a building on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. and claiming to have a bomb.

At about 9:15am on Thursday, local time, a man driving a black pick-up truck drove onto the footpath outside the Library of Congress, near the US Supreme Court and the east side of the Capitol Building.

When a Capitol Police officer arrived on the scene, the driver said he had a bomb. The officer saw “what appeared to be a detonator” in his hand.

Police immediately evacuated the nearby buildings, which were not operating at their full capacity anyway, as the House of Representatives, Senate and Supreme Court are all currently in recess.

The truck remained parked there until the man surrendered at about 2pm. In the intervening period, as police tried to negotiate with him, he livestreamed himself on Facebook.

In the video, the man warned President Biden: “You shoot me and two and a half blocks going with me.

“Don’t do it, Biden, don’t pull that trigger — ’cause if you do there’s four more going off. And I ain’t got my hands on any of them.”

“They’re sitting in cars all over this f–king place around here because you thought the South wasn’t coming,” he said.

“Well, Joe Biden, the South’s coming…I’m waiting on your phone call.”

Facebook has since removed the man’s profile, as well as the video.

Eventually the suspect, identified as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry from North Carolina, voluntarily left the vehicle and surrendered to police.

Social media posts show Mr Roseberry is a Trump supporter. His wife told NBC he was distraught over Mr Biden’s election victory last year.

RELATED: Capitol Police reveal trauma of the January 6 riot

casually seeing witnessing a bomb threat on the way to class nbd love this country #capitol#libraryofcongresspic.twitter.com/inpBJP0cCy

— fupa mama (@nirvananoir) August 19, 2021

In the live stream, the man was seen trying and failing repeatedly to get the attention of authorities and passersby, telling one person he had a bomb but apparently being ignored.

Eventually police were alerted, sparking the long standoff.

Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said he was “taken into custody without incident”.

“He advised that he had explosives. Over the course of time, we tried to negotiate,” Chief Manger told reporters shortly afterwards.

Police first communicated using a whiteboard, then used a robot to get a phone to the truck, but the driver wouldn’t use it.

Eventually, he just “got out of the vehicle and surrendered”.

Chief Manger stressed that the scene was still “active”, as authorities were still determining whether there were any explosives. That process will take “hours”.

“We still have to search the vehicle and render the vehicle safe. So we don’t know as of yet,” he said.

“It’s an active scene that we’re trying to render safe, it’s still ongoing.”

He said “certain things” that were visible in the truck had given them cause to worry, such as a propane gas container, but “at this point we think that is safe”.

Asked for more details on Mr Roseberry, Chief Manger hinted that he’d been going through a troubled period.

“He has had some losses of family. I believe his mother recently passed away. We spoke with members of his family, and there were other issues he was dealing with. There will be more on that in the course of time,” he said.

“Right now I just want to report that he is in custody. That part of it is done.

“He gave up and did not resist, and our folks were able to take him into custody without incident.

“As far as we could tell, it was just his decision to surrender at that point.

“We have no indication that he was acting with anyone else.”

A map of Capitol Hill. The man parked where the red dot is, outside the Library of Congress and near the US Supreme Court. Picture: Google Maps

First responders and police investigate a bomb threat near the US Capitol and Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

The Library of Congress’s main buildings were evacuated amid the scare, as was the nearby US Supreme Court and at least one of the three House office buildings.

The nearby Republican National Committee headquarters were also reportedly evacuated and the Washington Metro’s Capitol Hill subway station was closed as a precaution.

As the situation unfolded, a White House official said staff in the executive mansion where monitoring it and receiving updates from law enforcement.

Tensions have remained high on Capitol Hill in the wake of the insurrection on January 6, when supporters of Donald Trump attacked Congress in an attempt to stop it from certifying Mr Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.

In this file photo taken on January 06, 2021 Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they push barricades to storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C.

In April a man rammed a car into barriers at the US Capitol, killing one Capitol Police officer before he was shot and killed.

The January uprising prompted authorities to erect a ring of steel in the form of tall metal fencing and razor wire around the Capitol complex.

The fencing – one of the last physical reminders of the attack – only came down in July.

Originally published as Bomb scare at US Capitol: Man arrested after threatening to detonate explosives