The U.S. Capitol Guests Heart was closed Tuesday afternoon, after Capitol Police arrested a person throughout their safety screening course of who was carrying a torch and flare gun.
“Our officers just arrested a man who was stopped during our screening process at the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC),” the Capitol Police wrote in a press release on-line.
“The man smelled like fuel, had a torch & a flare gun. The CVC is closed for tours for the day, while we investigate,” the Capitol Police continued. “We will provide more information when we can.”
Capitol Police didn’t launch any extra info.
Congress will not be in session, however the Home is scheduled to fulfill for a quick professional forma session at 5 p.m. at the moment. These periods don’t embrace the complete decrease chamber, however fairly periods the place a number of members meet for procedural causes.
Safety has been heightened throughout Washington, D.C., and the nation on Election Day, with the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) warning of the excessive chance of assaults and threats on necessary establishments and buildings, such because the Capitol.
DHS and FBI ready a sequence of bulletins within the run-up to the election, warning that home violent extremists are contemplating a variety of actions to disrupt the 2024 election and peaceable switch of energy.
“DVEs continue to create, exploit, and promote narratives about the election process or legal decisions involving political figures, and we are concerned that these grievances could motivate some DVEs to engage in violence, as we saw during the 2020 election cycle,” reads an October bulletin from DHS crafted alongside the FBI.
There have been no different threats in Washington as of two p.m.
In Georgia, election officers needed to evacuate two polling precinct areas as a consequence of non-credible bomb threats. Voting resumed half-hour after the incidents.
