Guest post by Conservative Brief – An armed man was arrested and detained by members of the Secret Service near the Naval Observatory on Wednesday.
The Naval Observatory is where Vice President Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, her husband, live.
Members of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department arrested 31-year-old Paul Murray and charged him with carrying a dangerous weapon, carrying a rifle or shotgun outside of a business, possession of unregistered ammunition, and possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device.
“Officers responded, at approximately 12:12 pm, to the 3400 block of Massachusetts Avenue, NW in reference to a suspicious person based on an intelligence bulletin that originated from Texas, who was detained by US Secret Service,” MPD said in a statement. “A rifle and ammunition were recovered from the subject’s vehicle.”
A Texas man wanted by the police was stopped by the U.S. Secret Service and arrested Wednesday afternoon near the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, authorities said.
Police said they found a rifle and ammunition in a car belonging to the man, 31-year-old Paul Murray of San Antonio, which was parked some distance away in a garage in downtown Washington, according to NBC 4 in Washington. Also found in the car was what police called a large-capacity ammunition feeding device.
Murray was stopped by Secret Service officers at just after noon in the northwest section of Washington on Massachusetts Avenue, right outside of the Naval Observatory, which contains Harris’ residence.
Police said they arrested Murray in response to an intelligence bulletin that originated from Texas.
The vice president and her husband Doug Emhoff do not currently live at the Naval Observatory, as the residence is undergoing renovations. The couple is living at Blair House, near the White House.
Murray was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, carrying a rifle or shotgun outside of a business, possession of unregistered ammunition, and possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device.
Andrew Leyden, a former Capitol Hill staffer who lives near the Naval Observatory, told CNBC he witnessed the arrest while passing by on a scooter on his way to the Irish Embassy to film a St. Patrick’s Day video for his YouTube channel.
“A bunch of cops passed me at the National Cathedral,” which is just up the road from the Observatory, Leyden said. “What was really odd was it was marked units and unmarked units.”
A video Leyden took of the scene showed Murray surrounded by police, with a bike laying on the grass near them.
“I saw that kind of scraggly looking guy, cuffed,” said Leyden, who posted a video of the scene on Twitter.
Harris’s spokeswoman Sabrina Singh referred CNBC to the Secret Service when asked for comment.
