US: Man with baseball bat attacks Virginia Congressman's staffers

Washington [US], May 16 : Virginia Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly said that two of his staffers were injured after being attacked by a man who came into his district office in Fairfax wielding a baseball bat on Monday (local time), reported CNN.

A person armed with a baseball bat attacked two congressional staff members at a district office in Northern Virginia on Monday (local time) after asking to speak with Representative Gerry Connolly.

Connolly told CNN that the assailant who entered his office and attacked two of his aides did so with a metal bat. He said the attacker struck one senior aide in the head with the metal bat. The attacker also hit an intern - on her first day on the job - in the side with the bat.

The suspect, whom US Capitol Police identified as 49-year-old Xuan Kha Tran Pham of Fairfax is facing charges for one count of aggravated malicious wounding and one count of malicious wounding, USCP stated.

Sgt Lisa Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax City Police, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon that the assailant, a man who is believed to be a constituent of Connolly's, walked into the office around 10:30 a.m. with what appeared to be a metal baseball bat and struck two staff members in the upper body.

In a statement earlier, Connolly said both aides were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the City of Fairfax Police Department arrested the man.

"At this time, it is not clear what the suspect's motivation may have been," USCP said in their statement. "Based on what we know right now, investigators do not have any information that the suspect was known to the USCP."

The attacker, who is a constituent from his district but who Connolly says he doesn't know, caused wide damage in his office, shattering glass in a conference room and breaking computers along the way.

"He was filled with out-of-control rage," Connolly told CNN in a phone interview.

The attack comes amid a string of incidents where members of Congress, their staff and their families have been attacked in recent months.

In March, a staffer for Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was stabbed in Washington, DC. In February, a man assaulted Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota in the elevator of her apartment building also in Washington. In October, a man attacked Paul Pelosi, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hospitalizing him after hitting Paul Pelosi with a hammer in the couple's home in San Francisco.