My Local Congressman Targeted in Baseball Bat Attack; Lessons Could Be Learned

The attacker was not wearing a MAGA hat, so most commentators were caught flatfooted at first. Their second reflex was to blame this on a rising tide of attacks on politicians. However, it looks like this was a more mundane incident, and not one of much political use, so I'd give it two days max before it disappears from public consciousness. 

The suspect's father gave the news media some interesting information (here) that clarifies his son's motive and mental state.

Pham’s father, Hy Pham, told the Washington Post his son was schizophrenic and had dealt with mental illness since his late teens. Hy Pham told the newspaper he had been unsuccessfully trying to arrange mental health care for his son.

In May 2022, a person whose name and community of residence matches Xuan-Kha Pham’s sued the Central Intelligence Agency in federal court. In a hand-written complaint, the plaintiff alleged the CIA had been “wrongfully imprisoning me in a lower perspective” and “brutally torturing me with a degenerating disability consistently since 1988 till the present from the fourth dimension”.

Delusions of persecution involving the CIA, or the U.S. government more generally, are quite common among schizophrenics. Way back in 1993 there was a shooting outside the CIA's entrance (here), after which there was a major security risk assessment which included research into the risk to government offices from mentally disturbed persons. 

It turns out that a very large percentage of diagnosed paranoid schizophrenics have delusions of persecution that could motivate attacks on government offices and persons. So that's a known risk, against which any government office can mitigate by keeping up a mild level of visitor screening and access control. 

Here's a hint: if a visitor at your congressman's district office door is holding a metal bat, and you are not organizing a softball fundraiser, then it would be a great idea to have a substantial door you can lock by pushing a button. 

After the Paul Pelosi attack Congress provided its members with a small budget for additional security measures. For a change, maybe they'll spend that on physical barriers like a door that will withstand a bat instead of on CCTV cameras which are useless against violence.