Democrat Congressman Carjacked By Armed Assailants In DC

On Monday night, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) was carjacked by three armed assailants while parking his car.

In a statement to The Associated Press on Monday night, Cuellar’s chief of staff Jacob Hochberg wrote: “As Congressman Cuellar was parking his car this evening, 3 armed assailants approached the Congressman and stole his vehicle. Luckily, he was not harmed and is working with local law enforcement.”

The 68-year-old congressman was not harmed during the carjacking, which took place at around 9:30 p.m. in D.C.’s upscale Navy Yard neighborhood. His car has since been recovered. The carjackers have been described as “Black men wearing all-black clothing.”

While Cuellar is a Democrat congressman, he has rejected calls for more gun control in the past — even releasing a statement against gun control measures after the Allen, Texas, mall shooting. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

Cuellar spoke out about the carjacking on Tuesday while talking to reporters.

“I was just coming into my place, three guys came out of nowhere and they pointed guns at me,” he explained. “I do have a black belt, but I recognize when you got three guns — I looked at one with a gun, another with a gun, a third one behind me — so they said they wanted my car and I said sure.”

“You got to keep calm under those situations and then they took off,” Cuellar added. “They recovered the car. They recovered everything, what really got me upset was they took my sushi but anyway, that’s something else. And they did recover the sushi after all.”

The Democrat congressman also suggested that the carjacking did not significantly impact him emotionally, noting that his message for the public after the attack was: “You got to support law enforcement.

Cuellar was then asked about whether security should be increased for lawmakers after the incident.

“I don’t know,” he responded. “I’ll leave that to House administration, but this happened less than a mile away from the Capitol.”

“And my place, you got our leader Hakeem [Jeffries] there, Katherine Clark who lives there, a whole bunch of members that live in that place,” Cuellar added. “So, I’ll leave that up to the police.”