List of incidents of political violence in Washington, D.C.

The following is a list of incidents of political violence in Washington, D.C.

May 6, 1833: The first attempt to do bodily harm to a President was against President Andrew Jackson by Robert B. Randolph. Randolph had been discharged from the Navy by Jackson for embezzlement. During a stopover near Alexandria, Virginia in route to Fredericksburg, Virginia, Randolph appeared and struck the President. He then fled the scene with several members of Jackson's party chasing him, including the well-known writer Washington Irving. Jackson decided not to press charges.
January 30, 1835: Just outside the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed two flintlock pistols at the President Andrew Jackson, but both misfired, one of them while Lawrence stood within 13 feet (4 m) of Jackson, and the other at point-blank range. Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him down with a cane. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1861. When later tested by police, both pistols fired perfectly.
May 22, 1856: Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner is beaten with a cane by pro-slavery Congressman Preston Brooks on the floor of the United States Senate.
April 15, 1865: Abraham Lincoln assassination: President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre.
July 2, 1881: President James A. Garfield is assassinated by frustrated office-seeker Charles J. Guiteau while the President waited for a train at Washington's Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station on the National Mall, at the present location of the National Gallery of Art.
March 3, 1913: Woman Suffrage March of several thousand, organized by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and sponsored by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, turns violent when onlookers attack the suffragists. The attacks backfire on anti-feminists, however, when the open insults to and attacks on women win the feminist cause popular support.
July 2, 1915: The United States Senate reception room is bombed by Frank Holt a.k.a.(Eric Muenter), a German professor who wanted to stop American support of the Allies during World War I. The next morning he tried to assassinate J.P. Morgan, Jr., son of the financier, at his home on Long Island.
June 2, 1919: Attorney General of the United States Alexander Mitchell Palmer’s, house, located on R St., NW in Washington, DC is bombed by Carlo Valdonoci, a follower of anarchist Luigi Galleani. Mr. Palmer was uninjured in the blast but the explosion shattered the front of the house and blew out windows in the surrounding neighborhood, including those in the home of then Asst. Secty. of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who lived across the street. Valdonoci was killed in the premature explosion. On the same day, bombs went off in several other American cities, see (1919 United States anarchist bombings). In April of the same year, a mail bomb had been intercepted and defused before it reached Mr. Palmer. Later in 1919 Palmer would go on to lead the Palmer Raids against radical leftists in the country. (Washington Post, June 3 & 4, 1919)
November 1, 1950: Failed attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at Blair House by Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
March 1, 1954: 1954 Capitol shooting incident. Puerto Rican nationalists, led by Lolita Lebrón shoot and injure five members of the United States House of Representatives during an immigration debate.
May 10, 1970: National Guard Association of the United States. A single homemade bomb, enclosed in a briefcase, explodes at the entrance to the NGAUS. Windows in the building and surrounding area are blown out. Bombing occurs the night following a massive demonstration in D.C protesting the U.S. incursion into Cambodia. The radical group, the Weather Underground Organization, claims responsibility for the attack.
March 1, 1971: The United States Capitol: The radical leftist group the Weather Underground Organization explodes a bomb in the Capitol building to protest the U.S. bombing of Laos.
May 15, 1972: Governor George Wallace of Alabama, running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, was campaigning at a rally in Laurel, Maryland when he was shot and paralyzed by Arthur Bremer, a disturbed, out-of-work janitor. Laurel is located about 15 miles north of the Nation’s Capital.
May 19, 1972: The Pentagon: Bomb goes off in the fourth floor women’s restroom. Part of a wall is blown out and other damage is caused, resulting in around $80,000 in damages. The explosion occurs on Ho Chi Minh’s birthday and also several days before a planned demonstration to protest Nixon’s increased bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of N.V. harbors. The Weather Underground Organization takes credit for the attack.
June 1, 1973: Yosef Alon, the Israeli Air Force attaché in Washington, D.C., is shot and killed outside his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The Palestinian militant group Black September is suspected, though the case remains unsolved.
Jan. 29, 1975: United States Department of State: A device explodes in 3rd floor women’s bathroom, causing several walls to collapse and creating damage on five floors of the bldg. Damage estimated at $350,000. Bomb threat called into the Washington Post several minutes before blast by the radical group the Weather Underground Organization. The group cited the continued war in Vietnam and Cambodia and the continued U.S. support for those governments.
September 21, 1976: Orlando Letelier, a former member of the Chilean government, is killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. along with his assistant Ronni Moffitt. The killing was carried out by members of the Chilean secret police group, DINA.
March 9-11, 1977: 1977 Hanafi Siege. Three buildings in Washington, D.C. are seized by 12 gunmen, including the District Building (city hall), now called the John A. Wilson Building, B'nai B'rith headquarters and the Islamic Center of Washington. The hostage takers held 149 people, two of which died. After a 39 hour standoff all hostages were released.
July 22, 1980: Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian exile and critic of Ayatollah Khomeni, is shot in his Bethesda, Maryland home. Dawud Salahuddin, an American Muslim convert, was apparently paid by Iranians to kill Tabatabai.
March 30, 1981: Reagan assassination attempt. President Ronald Reagan and three others are shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr. after a speaking engagement by Reagan at the Hilton Washington.
December 7, 1981: Attempted kidnapping of members of the Federal Reserve Board at the Federal Reserve headquarters building by James W. von Brunn. Von Brunn’s motive was to raise awareness of alleged "treacherous and unconstitutional" acts by the Federal Reserve. von Brunn would later attack the U.S. Holocaust Museum on Jun 10, 2009.
Dec 8, 1982: Norman Mayer, an anti-nuclear weapons activist and eccentric, drove a white van up to the base of the Washington Monument. Mayer claimed to have a 1,000 pounds of explosives in the van, which he said he would use to destroy the monument, unless a national dialogue on the threat of nuclear weapons was seriously undertaken. He held off police for 10 hours before he started to roll the van towards the White House, at that point United States Park Police snipers opened fire, fatally wounding him. No explosives were found in the van.
April 26, 1983: A bomb explodes at the National War College at Fort McNair in SW Washington shattering windows and cracking walls in the building and doing $100,000 worth of damage but no injuries. See Resistance Conspiracy
Aug. 18, 1983: Bomb goes off at the Washington Navy Yard’s Computer Center doing minor damage and causing no injuries. See Resistance Conspiracy
November 7, 1983: 1983 United States Senate bombing. The "Armed Resistance Unit" a cover name for the militant leftist group May 19th Communist Movement, bombs the U.S. Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada. See Resistance Conspiracy.
April 20, 1984: Bomb explodes at the Washington Navy Yard Officers Club. See Resistance Conspiracy
January 25, 1993: 1993 shootings at CIA Headquarters, Mir Aimal Kasi opens fire on cars waiting at the stop light in front of CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA, killing two and injuring three others.
September 12, 1994: Frank Eugene Corder flew a single-engine Cessna into the White House lawn, apparently trying to hit the White House. President Bill Clinton and the First Family were not home at the time. Corder was the only casualty.
October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that President Bill Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing on the lawn (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). Three tourists, Harry Rakosky, Ken Davis, and Robert Haines, tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
July 24, 1998: United States Capitol shooting incident (1998). Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., a paranoid schizophrenic with a strong distrust of the Federal Government, opens fire at one of the Capitol Building’s checkpoints and kills two U.S. Capitol Police officers. Weston is wounded by one of the officers before he dies. Weston is not charged because of his mental condition and is sent to a Federal mental institution.
February 7, 2001: Robert Pickett, in the 2001 White House shooting, standing outside the White House perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House. President George W. Bush was elsewhere in the White House during the incident. Pickett was shot by a Secret Service officer. Pickett was found to have emotional problems and employment grievances and was sentenced in July 2001 to three year’s imprisonment.
September 11, 2001: Al-Qaeda terrorists fly a commercial jet American Airlines Flight 77 into The Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks. 184 people killed, 125 in The Pentagon and 59 non-terrorist passengers and crew on the plane.
Fall 2001: As part of the 2001 anthrax attacks, several letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to two Democratic U.S. Senators, Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The Senators were not injured but 31 staff members were infected and two postal workers at a Washington,DC postal sorting facility died from anthrax exposure.
March 1, 2007: Paul Joyal, a security analyst and critic of the administration of Russian president Vladimir Putin, is shot and wounded in front of his Adelphi, Maryland home, located several miles outside of the Capital. The shooting occurred four days after Joyal told Dateline NBC that the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko served as a warning to all critics of the Putin government. There is speculation that the shooting may have been in retaliation for the interview. The case is still unsolved.
June 10, 2009: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting. A gunman identified as 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. and shot a guard who later died. Wenneker von Brunn was critically wounded when security guards immediately returned fire. Wennecker von Brunn has been described as a white supremacist and a neo-Nazi Von Brunn later died on January 6, 2010, while awaiting trial. Previously, von Brunn had attempted to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board. (see December 7, 1981, above)
March 4, 2010: 2010 Pentagon shooting, John Patrick Bedell gets into a shootout with Pentagon security police near the entrance of the Pentagon Metro station. Two officers are wounded and Bedell later dies from his wounds. Bedell held a grudge against the Federal Government.
September 1, 2010: 2010 Discovery Communications headquarters hostage crisis, James Lee enters the Discovery Channel headquarters building in downtown Silver Spring, MD carrying a gun and explosives. Taking hostages, he holds off police for several hours before he is shot and killed. Mr. Lee had issues with the Discovery Channel about their broadcasts dealing with the environment.

List of incidents of political violence in Washington, D.C.

See also