Authorities said, a mental patient who is Dr Rep. Gerry Conley’s district office was raided — broke windows and hit two women, one of whom was an intern — first chased and threatened a woman with a metal baseball bat in a northern Virginia neighborhood.
Fairfax City Police Department
Connolly’s staff managed to shelter in an interior office until officers arrived within five minutes. Connolly said they subdued the man using a stun gun, identified as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax. He was being held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney for his first appearance Tuesday.
Pham, 49, has been violent before, attacking police officers last year. His father, Hai Pham, told The Washington Post his son is schizophrenic and has dealt with mental illness since his teenage years. She said she has been trying without success to arrange mental health care for her son. The father could not be reached by The Associated Press.
None of Pham’s injuries were fatal, but Connolly said it shows how vulnerable public servants are in an era when political rhetoric has become more prevalent.
“I have no reason to believe that his motivation was politically motivated, but it’s possible that the kind of toxic political environment that we all live in, you know, let him go, and I hope we all take a little more. What we say and how Time to be careful about that,” the Democratic congressman, who was not in office at the time, said in an interview.
Connolly said his staff — an intern hit in the side and an outreach director hit in the head — were released after hospital treatment. A Fairfax police officer involved in apprehending Pham also received treatment for minor injuries, police spokesman Sgt. Dr. Lisa Gardner.
“At this time, it is unclear what the suspect’s motive may have been,” Capitol Police said in a statement announcing a joint investigation with Fairfax City Police.
Police said the man is suspected in a separate attack a short time earlier on Monday.
Pham’s other alleged attacks before Monday
Fairfax County police said a man identified as Pham approached a woman parked in her car about five miles (eight kilometers) from Connolly’s office at 10:37 a.m., asked the woman if she was white, then hit her windshield with a bat. hurt and fled, according to police.
Connolly told CBS News “he never visited the office,” but said he had contacted the office before. “There was a communication where he called for help in a freak case. … There was no connection to what happened this morning.”
A video recorded on a neighbor’s home camera system at the same site shows a man wielding a bat chasing a woman who can be heard screaming. Homeowner Dan Ashley said it’s “sad to see something like this happen in the neighborhood.”
Suing the CIA
In May 2022, a man whose name and community of residence matched Juan-Kha Pham sued the Central Intelligence Agency in federal court.
In a handwritten, unvarnished complaint, the plaintiff alleges that the CIA “wrongfully imprisoned me in a low standard of care” and accused the agency of “brutally torturing me from 1988 to the present with a persistently degenerate handicap of the fourth degree,” Pham said, according to court documents. that he “could be restored to normal by a digital technology and to pay me $29,000,000 in damages for my extreme suffering and loss.” The Justice Department had sought to dismiss the case in March.
Assault officers
Last year, officers responded to a Fairfax home after a man called dispatch saying he wanted to harm others, Fairfax County police said in a statement. Pham assaulted responding officers and attempted to take the firearm, according to the statement. It is said that the officers were slightly injured.
Pham was charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and attempting to disarm a law enforcement officer, but the charges were ultimately dropped when he entered into an agreement designed to ensure mental health treatment, according to a Fairfax County man. . The commonwealth’s attorney’s office spoke on condition of anonymity because Pham now has an ongoing criminal case.
Pham complied with conditions that required him to undergo treatment for nine months from his arrest in January when the charges were dropped in September, the person said.
Connolly, currently serving his eighth term representing Virginia’s Fairfax County-based 11th District in suburban Washington, said officers had to subdue the man with a Taser.
“He was very violent and agitated. He obviously suffers from serious mental illness but it underscores for all of us the potential vulnerability of our district offices because we don’t have the level of security that we have here on Capitol Hill,” Connolly said.
Caitlin Elek and Nicole Killion contributed to this report.