An armed man wearing body armor tried to breach the FBI’s Cincinnati field office Thursday, authorities said, sparking an hours-long standoff with officers, who said they killed the man after trying “less-than-lethal tactics” to detain him.
The man tried to enter the visitor screening facility at 9.15am, the FBI said in a statement, but an alarm activated, alerting agents. The man fled northbound onto Interstate 71, leading officers on a car chase near Wilmington, Ohio, state Highway Patrol Lt. Nathan Dennis said. Authorities first tried to negotiate with the man, Dennis said, then fatally shot him after he raised a gun toward police.
State and federal officials declined to name the man or describe a potential motive. However, a law enforcement source told The Washington Post that investigators have identified him as Ricky Shiffer.
The confrontation comes days after the FBI executed a search warrant at former president Donald Trump’s Florida estate. Since the search, threats of violence against the FBI from Trump supporters online have increased, and Republicans have intensified criticism of the agency. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., likened the government to “the Gestapo,” and the New York Young Republican Club called for the arrest of those involved in the search.
After the man fled the FBI office on Thursday in a white Ford Crown Victoria, he refused to stop when a trooper tried to pull him over, instead firing his gun at authorities, Dennis said. When the car stopped near an overpass, the man got out and there was an exchange of gunfire, Dennis said. He said no officers had been injured.
Television footage of the incident showed a man crouched behind a car amid vast, green fields as law enforcement gathered at a distance.
Residents and businesses within a one-mile radius of the standoff scene were told to lock doors and stay vigilant, according to the Clinton County Emergency Management Agency. At about 4:30 p.m., the local agency said the law enforcement response ended.
In May, a Twitter user named Ricky Shiffer said he was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggested the attack was carried out by left-wing radicals in a reply comment to a photograph that showed rioters scaling the walls.
“I was there,” the user posted. “We watched as your goons did that.”
In a separate reply that day, the user referred approvingly to the Proud Boys, an extremist right-wing group, several of whose leaders face charges in the Capitol riot, in response to a comment about the Supreme Court.
“Oh, the packing. The packing could be here. Save ammunition, get in touch with the Proud Boys and learn how they did it in the Revolutionary War, because submitting to tyranny while lawfully protesting was never the American way. LEXINGTON,” the user wrote.
During the incident, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, while announcing that the Justice Department had filed a motion to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, called ongoing threats to federal agents and prosecutors unfair.
“The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants,” he said. “Every day they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism and other threats to their safety while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves.”
Several of Trump’s most ardent supporters have ramped up hostility toward the FBI in the days after the search at Mar-a-Lago. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted “DEFUND THE FBI!!” She added an image of an upside-down U.S. flag, which many on the right have embraced as a symbol of the nation in distress.
FBI Director Christopher Wray called the recent threats “deplorable and dangerous” at a news conference in Omaha on Wednesday.
“I’m always concerned about violence and threats of violence against law enforcement,” he said. “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter what anybody is upset about or who they’re upset with.”
