Ocasio-Cortez staff received risk assessment training from police due to death threats: report

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) staff has reportedly been trained on performing risk assessments due to the amount of death threats the congresswoman has received. 

Aides to Ocasio-Cortez told Time magazine that U.S. Capitol Police trained them how to vet visitors after multiple people threatened to kill the first-term lawmaker. 

Staffers say they are now tense whenever they hear a knock on the door of her Capitol Hill office, according to Time. 

{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez’s office declined to comment on the report, and Capitol Police did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill. 

The anecdote was part of an expansive profile of the 29-year-old congresswoman, who has become a rising progressive star in the Democratic Party. Time describes her as someone who “represents one vision of the Democratic Party’s future.”

Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in last November’s midterm elections. Since being sworn into the lower chamber, she has become a vocal proponent of progressive polices and a consistent critic of the GOP. 

She joined Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) last month in introducing the Green New Deal, an initiative that calls for sweeping infrastructure investments to combat climate change.

The proposal has been hailed by progressives as a proactive effort to combat the threat that climate change poses. Conservatives have widely panned the idea, pointing to its costs.

Ocasio-Cortez, who has gained a massive following on social media, earlier this month said that her influence likely infuriated her GOP critics. 

“The idea that a woman can be as powerful as a man is something that our society can’t deal with. But I am as powerful as a man and it drives them crazy,” she told The New Yorker, adding that she believes she sparks outrage from President Trump because she is a Latina.

Updated at 10:29 a.m.