(CNN) Rep. Jerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, injured two staffers after a man came into his district office in Fairfax and wielded a bat.
Connolly told CNN that he entered his office and attacked two of his assistants with a metal bat. The attacker hit a senior aide on the head with a metal bat, he said. The attacker also clubbed an intern — on his first day on the job — in the side.
In a statement Monday, Connolly said both deputies were taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and the Fairfax Police Department arrested the man.
The suspect, identified by U.S. Capitol Police as Xuan Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, faces one count of aggravated malicious wounding and one count of malicious mischief, the USCP said.
“At this time, it is unclear what the suspect’s motive may have been,” the USCP said in their statement. “Based on what we know now, investigators have no information that the suspect is known to the USCP.”
The attacker, a constituent from his district but whom Connolly says he does not know, caused extensive damage to his office, breaking glass in a conference room and smashing computers along the way.
“He was full of uncontrollable rage,” Connolly told CNN in a phone interview.
Connolly told CNN he was cutting the ribbon for the food bank when the attacker walked into his office and entered the building. The congressman estimates that it takes five minutes for police to respond to an emergency call for help.
The attack comes amid a string of attacks on members of Congress, their staff and their families in recent months.
In March, a staffer for Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky Stabbed in Washington DC. In February, a man Democratic Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota was attacked In the elevator of his apartment building in Washington. In October, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was assaulted and hospitalized. After hitting Paul Pelosi with a hammer At the couple’s home in San Francisco.
This story has been updated with additional updates.
