A man is in custody following an hourslong standoff with U.S. Capitol Police over a potential explosive device in the black pickup truck he drove onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger identified the driver as Floyd Roy Roseberry, a 49-year-old resident of Grover, North Carolina.
“He gave up and did not resist,” Manger said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The police chief told reporters that Roseberry said he had a bomb and what appeared to be a detonator; law enforcement later said they did not find a bomb. Only “possible bomb making materials were collected from the truck.” Roseberry is not believed to have any military or law enforcement background.
His motives appeared to be political, driven by anger at President Joe Biden. Family members told officers that Roseberry was dealing with unspecified issues in his life, including the death of his mother.
Officers initially used dry-erase boards to communicate with Roseberry from a distance before sending a robot his way with a phone attached. Roseberry refused to use the phone, Manger said, and got out of the vehicle soon after.
Law enforcement officers evacuated the area, including several buildings and nearby homes.
In a tweet on Thursday morning, U.S. Capitol Police said there was a “suspicious vehicle” on Capitol Hill; according to CNN, it did not have license plates.
Roseberry appears to have filmed himself sitting in the truck and discussing law enforcement’s response to his stunt, claiming that he did not want to hurt anybody but that his alleged explosives would impact multiple city blocks.
“The revolution’s on. It’s here,” he said toward the beginning of the video.
“They know I’m here. I done told them to clear the blocks,” he said, later adding that he was “trying to get Joe Biden on the phone.”
“You thought the South wasn’t coming. Well, Joe Biden, the South’s come,” he said midway through the 30-minute stream.
Roseberry said he told his wife that he was going fishing early in the morning.
Police were being assisted by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Metropolitan Police Department.
“They came pounding on our door,” Kathy Clark, who was visiting a relative who lives on the residential block right behind the Library of Congress, told HuffPost. “They said there’s a bomb threat.”
The incident comes more than eight months after a still-unknown individual placed pipe bombs outside the the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters just a few blocks away the night before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Unlike then, Congress was not in session on Thursday.
Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.