Would-be jumper left onlookers on edge

U.S. Capitol Police still do not know why Yuan Fang climbed over the seventh floor railing overlooking the Senate Hart Office Building’s atrium and threatened to jump Monday.

“We really don’t know,” said police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. Police negotiators employed a Mandarin Chinese translator to speak with the 66-year-old Flushing, N.Y., resident, who stayed perched on the shallow marble ledge throughout the night.

{mosads}Yuan eventually returned to the “correct side of the railing” at approximately 2 a.m., according to a statement issued by Schneider Tuesday morning. He had climbed across the railing at about 5:45 p.m. on Monday.

Yuan was charged with the misdemeanor crime of disorderly conduct and processed at Capitol Police headquarters Tuesday morning. He was then transferred to an undisclosed hospital in Washington, D.C. for a medical evaluation.

Neither Schneider nor the Senate Historian’s Office could recall any similar events on Capitol Hill in the past.

“Nobody seems to recall seeing anything like this in the past 20 years,” Schneider said. “It’s completely unusual.”

Authorities had positioned an inflatable jump pad underneath Yuan, but it was unclear whether they actually inflated it.

Schneider said she did not know of any proposed safety changes to the glass wall that Yuan climbed over or any other portion of the Hart building’s architecture, but referred all questions to the Architect of the Capitol (AoC). The AoC office had not responded by press time.

Fourteen senators have offices on the seventh floor, including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Earlier in the evening, Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer had expressed hopes that police would not have to use the inflatable device and that the situation would be resolved without the man jumping. He noted that police have dealt with the man previously but declined to comment further.

Schneider said Yuan was not a Capitol Hill employee and that she did not know why he came to the Capitol or was in Washington, D.C.

An online criminal background check conducted by The Hill revealed no prior crimes committed by persons matching Yuan’s description.

News agencies crowded the corner of Second and C streets NE Monday night until about 1 a.m., with all eyes fixated on the east entrance to the Hart building. Fire trucks and ambulances lined the blocked off portion of Second Street, rotating shifts periodically as the night turned to morning.

The U.S. Capitol Police’s bomb squad was on the scene throughout the night as a precautionary measure, though there were no reports of any hazardous devices.

The building, though not evacuated, was closed to incoming traffic at 6 p.m. and reopened as scheduled Tuesday morning.

While former Sen. Lester Hunt (D-Wyo.) was the only Senator to commit suicide in a Senate office building — on June 19, 1954 — nine other senators have ended their own lives, according to the Senate Historian’s Office.

The House Historian’s Office also could not recall any similar events to Yuan’s perilous perch Monday night. But they did cite Rep. Samuel Austin Kendall (R-Pa.), who shot himself in the head on Jan. 8, 1933 while in his office in the current Cannon House Office Building.