News
Louis Dor
Mar 29, 2016
A man who attempted to enter the US Capitol building’s visitor centre in Washington D.C. has been shot by police, after he drew a gun.
US Capitol Hill Police identified the man as 66-year-old Larry Dawson of Tennessee, who was arrested for interrupting a congressional session last year, by yelling “prophet of god”.
Picture: Larry Dawson/FacebookA female bystander was injured, struck by fragments of bullets when Dawson was shot by police. She has since been transported to hospital.
Police say he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer while armed. Officials originally said a police officer has been hurt, but Police Chief Matthew Verderosa later said no officers were shot, adding:
There is no reason to believe this is anything more than a criminal act.
This has angered some people, given his previous religiously-motivated arrest on the Capitol and the location in which he decided to draw a gun, asking whether this shooting incident would have been treated differently if he was Muslim:
Abed Ayoud, the legal and policy director for Washington DC-based thinktank the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told indy100 last year that he believed the word 'terrorism' had become reserved only for violence associated with Islam:
The only time the word terrorism or terrorist is used is when the perpetrator happens to be an Arab or a Muslim.
When the perpetrator happens to be a white American then the terminology is changed. So if it’s a white person then often we will hear that they have mental issues, they are troubled, different descriptions for their mental state.
More:If San Bernardino shooters are terrorists then so is the NRA boss, says New York Daily News
More:Two maps that show the scale and frequency of mass shootings in the US in the last three years
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