A North Carolina man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck near the U.S. Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hourslong standoff Thursday that prompted a massive police response and the evacuations of government buildings in the area.
WASHINGTON — A North Carolina man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup near the U.S. Capitol surrendered to law enforcement after an hours-long standoff Thursday that prompted a massive police response and the evacuations of government buildings in the area. Authorities searched the truck in an effort to understand what led the suspect, identified as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry, to drive onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress, make bomb threats to officers and profess a litany of antigovernment grievances as part of a bizarre episode that he live-streamed for a Facebook audience. Police said they did not find a bomb in the vehicle, but possible bomb-making materials were collected from it. Roseberry is from the Cleveland County town of Grover, which is on the South Carolina border about 45 minutes west of Charlotte. The standoff was resolved peacefully after roughly five hours of negotiations, ending when Roseberry crawled out of the truck and was taken into police custody. But even in a city with a long history of dramatic law enforcement encounters outside federal landmarks, this episode was notable for its timing — Washington remains on edge eight months after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — and for the way the suspect harnessed social media to draw attention in real time to his actions. Authorities who spent hours negotiating with Roseberry — first using a dry erase board and then using a robot to deliver him a telephone that he refused to use — were digging into his background Thursday afternoon. They did not reveal any details about a motive, and no charges were immediately announced. “We do know that Mr. Roseberry has had losses of late in his family. I believe his mother recently passed away. We spoke with members of his family, and there were other issues he was dealing with,” Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said during an afternoon news conference.
