(Washington) An employee wandered around the grounds of the U.S. Congress on Thursday with a pistol in his pocket unharmed, before finally being arrested, Capitol Police said.
At 7:40 a.m. Thursday, officers “found a gun in their X-ray scanner,” they said in a statement.
They note that its owner was “found and arrested four minutes later.”
The 57-year-old, who works at Capitol, told police he left his gun in his bag.
Anyone entering the Congress grounds is expected to show a white foot and cross the security gate with an X-ray scanner.
Security breach
An investigation is underway to shed light on this security breach and to understand why this person was not arrested once he crossed the country.
Capitol police have been on the offensive since thousands of Donald Trump supporters stormed a seat in the U.S. Congress on January 6 and tried to prevent elected officials from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
In particular, Joe Biden’s body will be exposed in Rotunda, the seat of the U.S. House of Representatives, just hours before he was due to travel to the Capitol for a tribute to the late Senator Bob Dole.
