Police officer dies in attack at US Capitol

An attack at the US Capitol complex in Washington DC has left one police officer dead and another in hospital with injuries.

A car crashed into a security barrier before the driver lunged towards the officers with a knife, police said.

The officers opened fire and the suspect was shot dead.

Authorities said the attack, which came three months after January’s deadly Capitol riots, did not appear to be terrorism-related.

“Whether the attack was at law enforcement, or whoever, we have a responsibility to get to the bottom of it and we’ll do that,” the acting chief of Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, Robert Contee, said at a news conference.

Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said it was “with a very, very heavy heart that I announce one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries”.

The officer, William “Billy” Evans, had been a member of the Capitol Police for 18 years and was part of the department’s first responders unit, Pittman said in a later statement.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke