A young man was arrested by Capital Police today after he was spotted walking down the street near the US Senate brandishing a long gun.
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00:00 So today at about 1239 hours this afternoon, a person came up to one of our officers right up at the near the Russell building and said that there was an individual in the park that had a gun.
00:22 The officers, United States Capitol Police officers came down and saw a 21 year old man. His name is Amir LeVon Morrell. He was walking along the sidewalk and he was holding the gun down as he walked.
00:41 They ordered him to stop. He did not. As he was walking at a fairly slow pace down the sidewalk toward Union Station, the officers came up behind him. One officer who had a taser tasered him in the back.
00:58 He fell forward onto his gun. At that point, the officers took him into custody. We know that Mr. Morrell again 21 years old. He is from his identification says he's from Atlanta, Georgia.
01:15 He is a registered sex offender in the state of Georgia and we have no other information about him. We are still looking. He had left a bag on a bench in the park and our bomb technicians are searching that bag.
01:38 So far, we have not found anything suspicious in the bag, but that the search of the bag is still ongoing.
01:49 From the time that the officers got word of that there was an individual in the park to the time we had him in custody was about three minutes. There is based on our officers limited contact and limited conversation with Mr. Morrell.
02:07 There is some indication that he may be dealing with some mental health issues. We don't know that. We don't know what his why he was in the park with a gun. He made no statements as to why he was here or what he intended to do.
02:24 Again, it's still an ongoing investigation. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have.
02:38 Certainly the fact that he was on Capitol grounds is is a concern. But the first and the first person that gave us information was someone who was walking across the park toward the Senate office buildings and where they notified our officers.
02:55 So we don't know where he was prior to being on the bench prior to walking on the sidewalk as we caught him. He was walking on the sidewalk northbound toward Union Station.
03:09 So we don't have any indication that he that he was any closer to the Capitol than than this park. But again, we don't know where he was prior to our contact with him.
03:23 It appears to be a semi automatic weapon. It looks a little bit like an AR 15. I haven't gotten a full information on the on the weapon yet.
03:33 Say again. I don't know the answer to that.
03:39 That's that's still to be determined.
03:44 Well, no, not on Capitol grounds. It's not.
03:50 I don't know that yet.
03:53 Say again.
03:56 Amir a HMI are LeVon L A V o n.
04:01 Morel M e r r e l l.
04:05 He's 21 years old. His driver's license said that states that he's from Atlanta, Georgia.
04:13 And say he what one thing we got in the background was that he was a registered sex offender in the state of Georgia.
04:21 He's an African-American male.
04:26 But due to being tasered just to check him out, I don't know if they were able to remove the tasers from the taser darts from him or not.
04:34 If they if they don't fall out, oftentimes we'll go to the emergency room to have him taken out.
04:39 But it's just precautionary. He seems to be just fine.
04:48 He did not. They were they came up behind him and were shouting at him to drop the gun.
04:56 And he just he remained facing forward and had another officer who plainclothes officer who was at the corner.
05:07 He was walking toward that officer. And but there were there were a group of officers behind him.
05:16 One officer with a taser. The other officer stopped, allowed the other officer with a taser to go up behind him.
05:21 And he was shot with a taser again, fell and dropped the gun.
05:29 There may there. I have not confirmed that it looked like there might have been an extraditable warrant for him, but I have not confirmed that.
05:41 I don't have any indication that that obviously we're going to do our best to find out, you know, trace where he was today.
05:48 Try and get an idea why he was here. But all that at this point is is yet to be determined.
05:59 Absolutely. The individual who was walking up near the building did the right thing by alerting our officers.
06:06 And again, with from the time we were notified to the time he was in custody was less than three minutes.
06:17 Well, certainly he'll be charged with having a firearm on Capitol grounds, which is a which is a violation.
06:24 Beyond that, we will have to determine if he if that if the gun was legal, if it was registered to him.
06:34 There's there's a lot more that we need to look at. But certainly the initial charge would be having a firearm on Capitol property.
06:41 Did he make any verbal threats? He was holding the gun down.
06:47 He he did not. Before we took him into custody, he made there was no information exchange.
06:54 We were telling him to drop the gun and he just kept walking at a very slow pace and until he was tased.
07:05 I'm sorry, I didn't hear. I'm not I don't know the answer to that.
07:12 All right. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Don't know yet. Thanks.
07:18 Can you confirm that this is him? Yeah, that's that's it.