Car on fire near Supreme Court

A person suspected of setting a car on fire Wednesday just steps from the Supreme Court has been taken into custody after he was injured in the incident. 

A spokesperson for the Supreme Court said an individual poured a flammable substance on an unmarked Supreme Court police vehicle parked on Maryland Avenue near First Street, NE.

The suspect was burned in the process and was taken into custody and transported to a hospital by ambulance. 

Police could be seen treating an individual on First Street, NE. The person was placed in an ambulance and had been covered in silver burn blankets after being stripped of their clothes.

Um there’s a car on fire at SCOTUS. pic.twitter.com/bY0lY9KZf4

— Marissa D. Barrera (@mdb2) July 15, 2020

Firefighters were seen hosing down the white automobile. One of the officers pounded on the trunk in an unsuccessful effort to open it. A single flame licked from the closed trunk door.

Marissa Barrera, a policy aide for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was having her lunch outside the Capitol building Wednesday afternoon when she heard a loud bang and saw people running away.

Barrera told The Hill it wasn’t immediately clear if the vehicle itself was on fire “and then the whole thing went up in flames.” She described the scene as “this ball of fire” that exploded about four times. 

She and other eyewitnesses were approached by police to make a statement.

Numerous officers on the scene declined to comment.

The court was not in session Wednesday, nor is Congress in Washington this week, although the fire came shortly before Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and several House Democrats were set to hold a press conference in the Capitol, just across the street from the fire.