An aide in the House of Representatives was arrested Thursday for allegedly attempting to carry a gun inside Congress.
The individual, identified as Jeffrey Allsbrooks, was detained, said the Capitol Police in a statement on Thursday morning.
“This morning at approximately 7:40 a.m., our officers in the Longworth Building spotted the image of a handgun in a bag on the x-ray screen,” the Capitol Police wrote in its statement. “The man was tracked down four minutes later and arrested.”
Allsbrooks, 57, is a staffer with the House Chief Administrative Office, the Capitol Police said. According to a LinkedIn page, Allsbrooks describes himself as a “logistics manager” in the House.
The House Chief Administrative Office is tasked with carrying out administrative functions for the House, including human resources, information resources, payroll, finance, procurement, and other services. The current chief officer is Catherine Szpindor, who took office on Jan. 3, 2021.
According to the statement, he told Capitol Police officers that “he forgot the gun was in the bag.” The agency said he was charged with carrying a pistol without a license.
“This case remains under investigation and the Department is looking into what happened before, during, and after those four minutes,” the statement continued.
Earlier in the day, the U.S. Capitol Police sent out an email Thursday that there was a so-called “security threat” inside the Longworth building and asked staff to take necessary precautions.
That email asked staff and members of Congress to “move inside your office or the nearest office,” “take emergency equipment and visitors,” close and stay away from doors and windows, stay quiet and silence electronic devices, and it added that no one can enter the Capitol building until the Capitol Police says so.
Some reporters who were inside the Longworth building said they could hear intercoms signaling a security threat on Thursday morning.
“Earlier security guards seemed to be looking for a suspicious person. They asked one of the ABC staff members who was with me if she had just entered the building or not,” said one ABC reporter.
Allsbrooks’s arrest came as President Joe Biden was scheduled to pay tribute to former Republican senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole, who is currently lying in state inside the Capitol building. Dole’s family confirmed his death over the past weekend.
The Capitol Police has been on alert since the Jan. 6 breach, as well as an incident in April where a man—later identified as an individual who had proclaimed allegiance to the Nation of Islam—rammed his car into a barricade outside the Capitol, killing a Capitol Police officer and injuring another.
From The Epoch Times
