The Supreme Court, a House of Representatives office building, and the Library of Congress were evacuated Thursday after a North Carolina man said he parked a bomb in his truck in front of the library, according to law enforcement officials.
Washington police ordered residents of several streets on Capitol Hill to evacuate their homes and the Republican National Committee evacuated its offices nearby.
The man who made the threat, 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry, posted several videos online from his truck, according to several senior law enforcement officers speaking to NBC News. Roseberry’s last known address is Grover, North Carolina.
“My negotiators are working hard to find a peaceful solution to this incident,” Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger told reporters at a briefing.
Manger said the man pulled a black pickup onto the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress at around 9:15 a.m.
When Capitol Police responded to a call regarding the truck, “The truck driver told the responding officer that he had a bomb and what the officer said appeared to be a detonator in the man’s hand,” said Manger.
“So we immediately evacuated the surrounding buildings,” said Manger.
A pickup truck is parked on the sidewalk in front of the Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building seen from a window of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Thursday, August 19, 2021.
Alex Brandon | AP
The man has made anti-government statements, according to police officers who spoke to NBC News.
Manger said the man made testimony on a livestream video.
A Facebook livestream shows the man in his truck in front of the Library of Congress.
Facebook removed the stream about 90 minutes after the video was recorded, said a company spokesman.
The man said he had a propane tank in the truck’s cab, officials said.
Two police officers told NBC that the driver was communicating with authorities by writing on a dry-erase board he had in the vehicle.
Bomb technicians from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on site alongside FBI negotiators.
A warning was issued to the people in the Cannon House office block asking them to leave that building and move to the Longworth House office block.
On Thursday, August 19, 2021, people are being evacuated from the James Madison Memorial Building, a building belonging to the Library of Congress in Washington, as law enforcement officers investigate a report on a pickup truck with an explosive device near the U.S. Capitol.
Alex Brandon | AP
The Congress is currently on hiatus. The Supreme Court does not meet either.
The White House was monitoring the situation and received updates from law enforcement.
Subways bypass the Capitol South station because of the investigation, said the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
– Additional coverage by CNBCs Brian Schwartz
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