Suspect in attack at U.S. Capitol went from jock to posting about paranoia, extremist groups

WASHINGTON — The man who police say rammed his car into a security barrier at the U.S. Capitol on Friday and was fatally shot by police after emerging from the vehicle with a knife was a lifelong athlete who in recent months had shown growing support on social media for Louis Farrakhan and the extremist Nation of Islam group. 

Noah Green, 25, was identified as the suspect in the attack that killed one U.S. Capitol Police officer and injured another, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the inquiry. Those who knew Green described him as quiet, athletic and non-violent but also told USA TODAY they were concerned about recent changes in his behavior.

Police say Green rammed a dark-colored sedan into a security barrier outside the U.S. Capitol, killing Officer William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police Department. After the crash, police say, Green got out of the car with a knife in his hand, ran toward officers and ignored their commands. Officers opened fire and killed him.

D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said Green’s attack did not “appear to be terrorism-related.”

U.S. Capitol Police officers stand near a car that crashed into a barrier on Capitol Hill in Washington on Friday. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

Contee said police are investigating to determine Green’s motive. He said Green was not known to either D.C. Police or the USCP and was not previously considered a threat to lawmakers.

People who went to school with Green and played sports with him growing up described him as the average jock: athletic, popular, even working at a gym in college.

The violence on Friday, they say, was jarring compared to the person they knew, but Green’s recent social media activity seemed to offer clues that he’d changed.

Green was born in West Virginia but spent most of his life growing up in a sparsely populated area of Virginia with a large family, including nine siblings, USA TODAY learned through multiple interviews. He was athletic, playing basketball and football growing up.

He graduated from Christopher Newport University in 2019, where he played football as a defensive back, a spokesman for the school in Newport News, Virginia, told USA TODAY. On his biography page for the team, Green noted he was majoring in business and the “person in history he’d most like to meet is Malcolm X.”

Rev. Patrick Mahoney was finishing up a Good Friday service outside of the U.S. Capitol Friday when he says he heard gunshots. He recounts how ran to pray with witnesses. (April 3)

AP Domestic

Andre Toran, who was a captain on the football team at the time, said Green was a “really quiet guy” who would crack jokes every once in a while but usually just smiled instead of chiming in on conversations.

“I know people say this all the time, but the guy who I played with is not the same person who did this,” said Toran, a reporter at the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Toran said while he moved away to attend graduate school in Chicago, Green’s mental state became an issue of concern among their friends.

Toran shared a Facebook post from Green during the COVID-19 pandemic in which Green accused his roommates of drugging him. Green wrote that he’d moved out but was suffering from withdrawals that included seizures and a lack of appetite, along with “paranoia” and “depression.” He wrote in the post that he was also experiencing “suicidal ideation.”

Green’s Facebook profile was taken down Friday after the Capitol attack.

Others who knew Green started to see a change in what he posted on Facebook, including support for the Nation of Islam, an anti-Semitic extremist group, as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and its leader, Farrakhan.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Nation of Islam as a hate group that aims to uplift African Americans but promotes anti-Semitic and racist theology.

KC Humphries, who attended CNU with Green, told USA TODAY they worked together at the school’s gym.

“He kind of came off as the average football athlete,” she said. 

Source: Read Full Article