2021 United States Capitol car attack

On April 2, 2021, at approximately 1:00 p.m., a man later identified as 25-year-old Noah Ricardo Green deliberately drove a blue Nissan Altima into a security barricade at a checkpoint on Constitution Avenue near the Senate side of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The vehicle struck two Capitol Police officers. After the crash, Green exited the car with a knife, lunged at officers, and ignored verbal commands before being shot by police. He was hospitalized and died shortly afterward from his gunshot wounds.

Officer William "Billy" Evans, an 18-year veteran of the United States Capitol Police and a member of its first responder unit, was struck by the vehicle and later died from his injuries at a hospital. He was the sixth Capitol Police officer to die in the line of duty since the force's creation in 1828. A second officer was also wounded in the attack.

The Capitol complex was placed on lockdown following the attack, with staff instructed to shelter in place while the National Guard's Immediate Reaction Force mobilized near the checkpoint. The lockdown was lifted later that day.

Green was born in Fairlea, West Virginia, and grew up in Covington, Virginia, where he played football and ran track in high school before attending Glenville State College and later Christopher Newport University, where he played defensive back on the football team. After graduating, people close to him described a marked deterioration in his mental state, including reported paranoia, delusions, suicidal thoughts, and hallucinations. He believed he had been drugged and experienced withdrawal symptoms, moved abruptly between cities, and eventually traveled to Botswana, where he told his brother his "mind was telling him to basically commit suicide" and jumped in front of a car, injuring himself.

In the months before the attack, Green became a follower of the Nation of Islam and its leader Louis Farrakhan, posting supportive content on Facebook and petitioning unsuccessfully to legally change his name. He wrote about end-times religious beliefs and claimed to have suffered persecution by government agencies. Investigators concluded the attack stemmed from a combination of his mental health issues and an ideological cause he believed justified violence; he was not previously known to police and had no known connection to any member of Congress.

Following the attack, members of Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and President Joe Biden offered condolences to Evans's family and praised the response of police and National Guard personnel. Flags at the Capitol and other public buildings were lowered to half-staff. Green's family issued a statement expressing sympathy for the officers and describing his mental health struggles, while the Nation of Islam stated Green had never completed the process to become a registered member and disavowed his actions.