An 18-year-old man wearing a tactical vest and carrying a loaded shotgun sprinted toward the US Capitol on Tuesday before police officers intercepted him near the building's Lower West Terrace. Carter Camancho of Smyrna, Georgia, was carrying additional rounds of ammunition when he was challenged by US Capitol Police. He complied and was taken into custody.
The incident triggered an immediate security alert just after noon. Capitol Police warned staff and personnel to avoid the West Front area. Maryland Avenue was closed between First and Third Streets, SW. Within roughly two hours, authorities gave the all-clear, and traffic resumed, the Daily Mail reported.
Lawmakers are in recess this week, meaning most representatives and senators were not in Washington or at the Capitol when Camancho made his approach.
What Capitol Police Revealed
USCP Chief Michael Sullivan said Tuesday afternoon that Camancho was spotted when he began running toward the Capitol with his weapon out. Officers moved to confront him, and he surrendered without a firefight. The initial police alert was measured in its language:
"Our officers just arrested a person with what appears to be a gun near the West Front of the US Capitol Building. Please avoid the area."
Authorities later confirmed the weapon was a loaded shotgun and that Camancho was equipped with a tactical vest and extra ammunition. No charges have been publicly specified as of the time of reporting, and no motive has been disclosed.
A white Mercedes-Benz near the scene was searched by Capitol Police and towed after the incident.
A Pattern That Keeps Escalating
This was not an isolated scare. Capitol Police investigated 14,938 threatening incidents in 2025, up from 9,474 in 2024. That is not a modest increase. That is a 58 percent jump in one year, part of what authorities describe as a sharp uptick in threats over the last five years.
Two members of Congress have already been physically attacked this year. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was sprayed with an unknown substance from a syringe during a town hall in Minneapolis. Days before that, Congressman Maxwell Frost was punched in the face at the Sundance Film Festival. Both attackers were later charged with assault.
One aide captured the quiet dread that has become routine for the people who work inside the Capitol:
"The fact that I work in a building that's such a major target is always in the back of my mind when I'm coming into work."
The same aide added a note of gratitude for the officers who stopped this from becoming something far worse:
"It's definitely a little unnerving at times, but I'm thankful that the Capitol Police do such a great job protecting us & stopping these incidents before they become a tragedy."
The Officers Did Their Job, The Question Is Why They Keep Having To
There is no ambiguity about what happened on Tuesday. An armed man ran at the seat of American government with a loaded weapon and extra ammunition. The only reason this story ends with an arrest and not a body count is that Capitol Police officers performed exactly as trained under pressure. That deserves recognition, not just relief.
But the trajectory of these numbers should alarm anyone paying attention. Nearly 15,000 threat incidents in a single year. Physical attacks on sitting members of Congress. An 18-year-old driving from Georgia to Washington with a shotgun and a tactical vest. These are not disconnected data points. They describe a country where political violence is becoming normalized, where the temperature keeps rising, and the people tasked with holding the line are absorbing more pressure every year.
The political class has spent years treating threats against institutions as rhetorical props, condemning violence when the target is sympathetic and memory-holing it when the target is inconvenient. That selective outrage corrodes the very norms that are supposed to keep an armed teenager from thinking the Capitol is a legitimate target.
We do not yet know what drove Carter Camancho to the Capitol steps. We do know that the men and women who stopped him deserve more than a two-hour news cycle. And we know that nearly 15,000 incidents a year is not a statistic. It is a warning.
Tuesday, the warning was answered in time.
