A protester wearing U.S. Marine Corps dress blues and three Capitol Police officers were treated for injuries sustained amid a scuffle in a Senate office building on Wednesday that involved a former Navy SEAL senator.
The incident occurred when the demonstrator, identified as Brian McGinnis, 44, of North Carolina, disrupted a Senate Armed Services hearing by standing up and speaking against the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.
Videos of the incident posted on social media show McGinnis shouting, “Israel is the reason for this war. America does not want to fight this war for Israel. America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel!”
Officers came over to remove McGinnis, who claims to be a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, for disrupting the proceedings, and when he resisted, three Capitol Police officers began to forcibly remove him from the room.
When McGinnis reached the doorway, he grabbed the frame of the door to attempt to remain in the room as he continued to shout in protest. At that time, Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT), a member of the committee, joined the officers in attempting to carry him out of the door.
Video shows Sen. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL, grabbing McGinnis’ arm to remove him as other protesters are heard yelling that his hand was stuck.
Capitol Police said in a statement, via the Associated Press, that McGinnis “got his own arm stuck in a door to resist our officers and force his way back into the hearing room,” and said he was treated for his injuries.
McGinnis was arrested and faces three counts of assaulting a police officer and three counts of resisting arrest and unlawful demonstration, the Capitol Police said in a statement.
The statement called McGinnis “an unruly man who started to illegally protest during a hearing put everyone in a dangerous position by violently resisting and fighting our officer’s attempts to remove him from the room.”
Sheehy later posted on social media that he was trying to de-escalate the situation.
“This gentleman came to the Capitol looking for a confrontation, and he got one,” Sheehy said, “I hope he gets the help he needs without causing further violence.”
McGinnis appears to be running as a “Green Party Candidate for US Senate” in North Carolina, and a social media account that appears to be his has posted numerous times against Israel’s war on Gaza.
His campaign website claims he enlisted in the Marines in 2000 and was honorably discharged in June 2004.
“Did my one enlistment as a Light Armored Vehicle Crewman, an infantry MOS in the Corps,” the website reads, adding he did six months on the USS Wasp in 2002 and “established a training ground in Djibouti” and deployed for the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 and “traveled extensively across the country.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.