Suspect in baseball bat assault on Rep. Gerry Connolly’s workers allegedly chased lady minutes earlier

Chilling video footage exhibits a screaming lady fleeing a baseball-bat-wielding man — moments earlier than he allegedly stormed Rep. Gerry Connolly’s Virginia workplace, attacking two staffers and injuring a cop.

The door-cam clip emerged because it was revealed that the 49-year-old suspect, Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, has a historical past of psychological sickness — together with a earlier assault on police by which he tried to take a gun.

Monday’s video confirmed the girl, dressed all in black, screaming in clear terror as she flees by a yard in Fairfax County simply moments earlier than the rampage at Connolly’s close by district workplace.

Her pursuer ultimately provides up the chase, strolling again with the steel bat in hand because the shocked lady screams, “What’s he doing?”

Police later recognized him as Pham, saying he stopped a lady in her automotive — then smashed her windshield after asking if she was white.

Pham was charged with a hate crime for that, together with aggravated wounding and malicious aggravated wounding for the baseball bat assault on Connolly’s staffers. He additionally faces a felony depend of destroying property.

He refused to seem at his arraignment Tuesday, so a decide learn the fees by way of a video hookup whereas Pham huddled beneath a blanket in his cell. He was ordered held with out bond till a listening to in July.

Neighbor Dan Ashley stated he discovered the footage of the “screaming and terrified” lady after police linked the phobia in his neighborhood to the bat assault on the lawmaker’s workplace.

“I heard in regards to the Gerry Connolly factor on the information, however I had no concept that it was so near house,” Ashley advised reporters.

Pham was allegedly armed with the identical steel bat when he stormed into the district workplace of Connolly, who told The Washington Post he’d been at a ribbon chopping for a close-by meals financial institution on the time.

The attacker requested, “The place’s Connolly?” — then flipped out when advised he was not there, the lawmaker stated.

He allegedly hit an intern — who was on her first day within the workplace — within the facet of the physique as she sat on the reception desk, then struck the workplace’s outreach director on the again of the pinnacle with the bat.

One other staffer — a retired Military sergeant — herded staffers into an workplace to safeguard them, Connolly advised the DC paper.

“The person then went on a rampage and was smashing glass home windows and a pc,” Connolly stated.

A responding cop additionally acquired a minor damage within the arrest, by which officers used a stun gun to subdue Pham.

Connolly’s staffers had been discharged from the hospital later Monday.

“We’re extraordinarily, extraordinarily completely satisfied this wasn’t worse,” Fairfax Metropolis Police spokesperson Lisa Gardner advised the Washington Submit.

The assault can also be being investigated by Capitol Police, who stated that “it’s not clear what the suspect’s motivation could have been.”

There could not even be an actual motive, steered Connolly, who stated: “I feel we’re speaking about actual psychological sickness.”

His father, Hy Pham, advised the Washington Submit his son is schizophrenic and had handled psychological sickness since his late teenagers, including that his son heard voices however refused to take remedy.

A yr in the past, Pham sued the CIA in federal court docket for “wrongfully imprisoning me in a decrease perspective” and “brutally torturing me … from the fourth dimension.”

“He blamed the FBI for making him sick,” his dad additionally stated. “He blamed the Navy for making him sick.”

Final yr, officers responded to a Fairfax house after a person referred to as dispatch saying he wished to hurt others, Fairfax County Police stated.

Pham assaulted responding officers and tried to take a firearm, leaving officers with minor accidents.

He was initially charged with 4 felonies, together with assault on a legislation enforcement officer, resisting arrest and trying to disarm a legislation enforcement officer.

Nonetheless, these prices had been dropped “as a part of an settlement that ensured the person was complying with psychological well being providers,” the Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Legal professional’s Workplace stated.

Pham complied with circumstances requiring him to hunt therapy from his arrest in January by a nine-month interval when the fees had been dropped in September, a supply within the workplace stated.

“He’s clearly any individual affected by critical psychological sickness,” Connolly stated.

Even so, “it does underscore for all of us the vulnerability doubtlessly of our district workplaces as a result of we don’t have the extent of safety we now have right here on Capitol Hill,” he stated.

Different elected officers from Virginia condemned the violence, amongst them US Sen. Mark Warner who referred to as the assault an “terribly disturbing improvement.”

“Intimidation and violence — particularly in opposition to public servants — has no place in our society,” Warner stated.

With Submit wires