Facebook take down live-stream of man threatening to blow up Capitol buildings

‘You thought the south wasn’t coming. Well Joe Biden’s time has come,’ the US Capitol bomb suspect Floyd Ray Roseberry said on a live-stream

Facebook have removed a live-stream which appeared to show the suspect in the Capitol bomb threat live-streaming from outside the Library of Congress.

In the 35 minute video, the suspect, identified as 49-year-old Floyd Ray Roseberry described himself as a patriot and makes threats against President Joe Biden and the US Capitol Buildings.

He appears to be filming from the inside of a black pickup truck and says the truck contains ammonium nitrate explosives in a tool box in the rear cab.

Mr Roseberry, from Grover, North Carolina, surrendered just after 2pm, bringing the near five-hour stand-off to an end.

In the footage, the man can be seen holding a steel canister with a black plastic device connected to the top of it, which he claims is the detonator.

The man warned that if he was “taken out” by snipers, the explosive device would detonate.

“If you shoot these windows out, the revolution is on,” Mr Roseberry said.

“You thought the south wasn’t coming. Well Joe Biden’s time has come. The roads are blocked, and I’m waiting for your call,” he said.

The live-stream was still able to be viewed on Facebook several hours after the suspect’s personal page had been removed.

An eyewitness photo from near the Library of Congress shows the alleged suspect threatening the Capitol area with potential explosives. (Sydney Bobb)

“Come out here and talk to me Joe, America’s tired of it,” he said.

“I’m a patriot. I love this land. I’ll die for this land. Cos my grandbabies are going to have the rights I had.”

Mr Roseberry also claimed to be standing up for the people of Afghanistan.

“I don’t want to doe Joe, I just want to go home. Just like the people of Afghanistan. All them dead people is on your hands. Afghanistan I’m standing for you strong too.”

Looking straight into the camera, the suspect became emotional as he addressed Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi directly.

“Joe I love you man. I love Nancy. I love all y’all. I love the man who’s getting ready to put a bullet in my head.

“You better hope he’s a Democrat and not a Republican, cos this revolution is on.”

The man said he had told his wife he was going fishing, but had instead driven to Washington DC.

“My family don’t know I’m here,” he said.

“All those sirens out there are making me nervous. Cos I don’t want to die. But I ain’t scare of dying.”

Mr Roseberry’s wife told NBC News he had left North Carolina on Wednesday night and told her he was going fishing.

She said he had been suffering from mental health problems, and had recently changed medications.

Mr Roseberry claimed he had thrown $3,000 from his truck, and that it had been picked up by a bystander.

The video had been viewed at least 2900 times before it was taken down.

In a statement to The Independent, a Facebook spokesperson said they were working to take down the suspect’s social media accounts and every copy of his live-stream.

“We are in contact with law enforcement and have removed the suspect’s videos and profile from Facebook and Instagram.

“Our teams are working to identify, remove, and block any other instances of the suspect’s videos which do not condemn, neutrally discuss the incident or provide neutral news coverage of the issue.”

Facebook are also removing content that “praises, supports or represents the suspect and any additional accounts belonging to the suspect or accounts created by others in his name if we find on them our services”.

They are also temporarily preventing other people on Facebook and Instagram from creating accounts with the same name as the suspect.

Facebook are also removing reshares of the video “which do not condemn, neutrally discuss or provide neutral news coverage of the incident”.

Earlier, an eyewitness says she saw a man in a black pickup truck in front of the Library of Congress shouting he had “a bomb” while tossing dollar bills out of the window.

Capitol police are responding to an “active bomb threat investigation” after a man in a pickup truck threatened to detonate an explosive device near the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

The area around the Library on Capitol Hill was being evacuated on Thursday morning and people were urged to stay away from the area.

Sydney Bobb, 22, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she was on her way to a race in politics class near the Library of Congress at about 9.25am when she noticed a man in a black pickup truck shouting that he had a bomb.

“I was walking on that block because that’s where I go to class. He was shouting that he had a bomb. And then he threw money out the side of the truck,” Ms Bobb told The Independent by phone as she was being evacuated from her class.

She said she couldn’t see any device in his truck, and law enforcement have so far been unable to verify whether the man has explosives.

“I remember feeling scared,” she said.

Ms Bobb took a photo of the suspect which showed dollar bills strewn on the ground near the truck.

She initially thought the bills must have been fake “because who throws money out of a truck?”

“But it wasn’t.”