A California man was arrested Tuesday after U.S. Capitol Police said officers discovered a guillotine in the bed of his pickup truck near the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court.
Philan-Tam-Duy Le, 35, of Julian, California, had traveled from the West Coast to Washington, D.C., before authorities found his truck illegally parked in the 100 block of East Capitol Street shortly after 3 p.m., police said.
What officers noticed next quickly turned a parking violation into a far more unusual investigation.
According to U.S. Capitol Police, a guillotine was positioned in the truck bed.
Police seized the device and took Le into custody on a charge of carrying a dangerous weapon.
He also received a citation for illegally parking next to the Supreme Court grounds.
Images released by Capitol Police show the guillotine fully assembled and standing upright in the back of the pickup.
Investigators are now examining Le’s background and working to determine why he brought the execution-style device to the nation’s capital.
Kelvin Le, the suspect’s brother, told the Los Angeles Times that his brother was unhappy with the current state of politics.
The device is an execution instrument designed to kill by beheading.
It features a heavy blade mounted on a tall wooden frame and was invented in late-18th-century France.
It later became an infamous symbol of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
Owning a guillotine on private property is generally not a crime.
Bringing a dangerous weapon into protected government areas is another matter.
The Capitol complex and Supreme Court grounds are subject to strict federal and local security rules governing objects brought near government buildings.
Le remains under investigation as USCP works to determine why the Julian, California, resident made the cross-country trek to Washington and arrived near the nation’s most heavily guarded government buildings with a guillotine.
The California Post reached out to Capitol Police for more information.
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