WASHINGTON—The man suspected of carrying out a bomb threat outside the Library of Congress was charged Friday with one count of threatening to use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of threatening to use an explosive device.
Floyd Ray Roseberry, 49, of North Carolina said during a hearing Friday that he was having trouble understanding the proceedings, telling the court he had not had “my mind medicine” in two days. It wasn’t clear what medication he was referring to.
Citing a relative, prosecutors alleged that Roseberry recently expressed anti-government views and intended to travel to Virginia or Washington, D.C. to conduct acts of violence.
That relative also said, according to the charging documents, that he “ordered a trench coat to protect him from Taser and pepper ball guns and he would just tip his cowboy hat at the police.”
Roseberry allegedly drove a lifted, four-wheel-drive pickup onto a sidewalk near the U.S. Capitol, phoned authorities and claimed he had a bomb onboard the vehicle.
He then engaged in an hours-long standoff with Capitol Police and other authorities, the charging documents said. He held what appeared to be a detonator, but it later turned out that any possible explosives were fake, police said.
Roseberry has expressed a litany of anti-government complaints and said during a Facebook livestream before the standoff that he was starting a revolution.
He called for the resignation of President Joe Biden, complained about immigrants and said he and his wife could not get health insurance to cover their medical needs.
The suspect eventually got on the ground and surrendered.
The incident came more than months after pro-Trump rioters invaded the Capitol in an attempt to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Williams reported from Washington and Romero from California.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
