A person armed with a baseball bat attacked two congressional staff members at a district office in Northern Virginia on Monday after asking to speak with Representative Gerry Connolly, the congressman said in a statement.
Mr. Connolly, a Democrat, said the individual committed “an act of violence” at his Fairfax, Va., office against two members of his staff, who were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Sgt. Lisa Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax City Police, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon that the assailant, a man who is believed to be a constituent of Mr. Connolly’s, walked into the office around 10:30 a.m. with what appeared to be a metal baseball bat and struck two staff members in the upper body.
Sergeant Gardner said that a motive was not immediately known, and that charges against the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, would be forthcoming.
Both staff members were conscious when the police arrived about five minutes after a 911 call, she said.
“You could absolutely tell that the people inside were scared, they were hiding,” she said.
“It’s quite frankly scary that someone can walk up to an office with a baseball bat and just start swinging at innocent victims,” she added.
Mr. Connolly represents a swath of the Northern Virginia suburbs west of Washington, D.C. He was first elected to Congress in 2008. In a statement after the attack, he said he has “the best team in Congress.”
“My district office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day,” Mr. Connolly said in the statement. “The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”
The attack comes amid a rise in threats and violent political speech against members of Congress in recent years. In October, an intruder bludgeoned Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, inside their San Francisco home after he shouted “Where is Nancy?”
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