By Lindsay Whitehurst
A man with a rifle was arrested in a park near the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, police said.
Police confronted 21-year-old Ahmir Lavon Merrell of Atlanta after someone saw him with the gun in a park near Senate office buildings and told an officer, U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. Officers demanded that he drop the gun, but he refused and they used a Taser stun gun to subdue him, police said.
The park and roads in the area across from Washington’s Union Station were closed for about two hours as officers searched the area and Merrell's belongings.
Officers said they did not believe there was an ongoing threat. It was not immediately clear why he was in Washington. No publicly listed contacts were available for him, and a lawyer who represented him on a previous case did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said he was proud of officers who “ran toward the man with the loaded gun.”
Carrying firearms is prohibited on U.S. Capitol grounds. So far this year, U.S. Capitol Police have confiscated more than 30 guns.
After the arrest, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he supports a ban on guns often referred to as assault weapons. “We are keeping a constant vigilance on security” in the Capitol, he said.
Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this story.
Better catch the show if you can. There won't be another blue supermoon until 2037.
A technical issue that led to hundreds of flight delays and cancellations in the UK on Monday will take 'some days' to fix.
Cheddar News checks in with a coast-to-coast forecast of the weather for Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023 and the latest on Hurricane Idalia.
Police charged a graduate student at the University of North Carolina with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting and killing a faculty member.
Monday marks 60 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech during the March on Washington.
Cheddar News checks in with a coast-to-coast forecast of the weather for Monday, Aug. 28, 2023.
Yale says it will modify its policies regarding medical leaves of absence, including streamlining the reinstatement process for students who return to campus when they are ready.
Hawaiian Electric Co. had not insulated miles of wires, which can spark on contact, or replaced old, leaning wooden utility poles not built for strong winds.
Camp Pendleton, CA - December 05: A MV-22 Osprey aircraft is used during the annual Steel Knight training exercise on Monday, December 5, 2022 at Camp Pendleton. (Photo by Mindy Schauer/MediaNewsGroup/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
The original march in 1963 drew as many as 250,000 people and helped pave the way for the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation in the next few years.
