Capitol Police arrest woman with guns who wanted to talk about Jan. 6

Capitol Police officers on Thursday arrested a Michigan woman who they said showed up outside the department’s headquarters with multiple guns, including one that was loaded.

Police said in a statement that the woman illegally parked her car in front of Capitol Police headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, saying she “wanted to talk about information she had about” the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

An agent noticed a gun case and one of the firearms in the woman’s vehicle as they spoke with her, according to Capitol Police.

The woman, who has been identified as Kery Lynn McAttee, was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of unregistered ammunition, unlawful possession of a semi-automatic rifle and unlawful possession of a firearm, police said.

Despite the presence of firearms in her vehicle, police said there was no indication that she planned any actions beyond talking to officers about last year’s riot.

“At this time, there is no evidence the 58-year-old suspect was coming here to do anything, except speak with our officers,” the Capitol Police said.

The firearms police said were recovered from McAttee’s vehicle included a loaded Mossberg .410 caliber shotgun, an unloaded Remington Nylon 66 .22 caliber rifle and an unloaded Connecticut Valley Arms .50 caliber muzzle loader. Police also found a pellet gun.

Capitol Police have arrested numerous people over the last year since the Jan. 6 attack who showed up on Capitol Hill with weapons or threatened violence.

In October, police arrested a woman carrying a baseball bat who bit an officer near the Capitol’s West Front. A month before that, the Capitol Police arrested a man who had a bayonet and machete in his pickup truck, which had white supremacist symbols on it, outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters near the Capitol.

That all followed a security scare in August when a man illegally parked his car in front of the Library of Congress and claimed he had a bomb. The man livestreamed the five-hour standoff with law enforcement on Facebook and made statements criticizing President Biden and other top Democrats.

And last April, a man rammed his car into a security barricade on the Senate side of the Capitol in an attack that killed Capitol Police Officer William “Billy” Evans and injured another officer. The man also brandished a knife after crashing his vehicle and was fatally shot by officers.

The weapons-related arrests by the Capitol Police haven’t been entirely limited to people who traveled to Capitol Hill from outside Washington.

In December, the Capitol Police arrested a staffer with the House chief administrative officer who brought a handgun into the Longworth House Office Building. The staffer had gone through a metal detector and told police that he forgot the gun was in his bag.