“Our officers just arrested a person with what appears to be a gun near the West Front of the U.S. Capitol Building. Please avoid the area,” U.S. Capitol Police said on social media platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement released later, it said officers surrounded and arrested a man who ran toward the U.S. Capitol with a “loaded shotgun” shortly after noon on Tuesday, on the Lower West Terrace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspect also had “multiple rounds of ammunition” and a tactical style vest, it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incident comes as threats against members of Congress have skyrocketed. Last year, the U.S. Capitol Police opened 14,938 cases into “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” directed at congressional offices and family members in 2025, a nearly 60 percent increase from 2024, said a report by Axios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An 18-year-old man who approached the U.S. Capitol with a loaded shotgun on Tuesday was arrested, said U.S. Capitol Police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":2000102349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101],"byline":[235],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2000102334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-37","tag-internationl","byline-xinhua"],"bylines":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"contributors":[{"id":235,"name":"Xinhua","slug":"xinhua","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":80}],"featured_image":{"id":2000102349,"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","alt":"","caption":"US Capitol police searching a vehicle on Feb 17 in the vicinity of the Capitol in Washington DC, after a young man running towards the building with a shotgun was arrested. Photo Strait Times ","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":1000,"height":667,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","width":150,"height":100},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","width":300,"height":200},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","width":768,"height":512},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","width":1000,"height":667},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/asas.jpg","width":1000,"height":667}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000102334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000102334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000102334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000102350,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000102334\/revisions\/2000102350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000102349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000102334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000102334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000102334"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2000102334"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2000102334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}