Capitol Police arrest man with fully working guillotine outside Capitol and Supreme Court — and say motive unclear

Do you really need a dead body in this age of assassinations to know that something dangerous was going on when the Capitol police seized a fully working guillotine on the truckbed of a man who drove cross country to plant it in front of the Capitol and the Supreme Court?

Read more An accused killer who randomly hacked a stranger to death dies in custody, and Zohran Mamdani dons black and brings out the weeping wagon

According to The Hill:

The man who was arrested Tuesday for driving with a guillotine near the U.S. Capitol told police officers the weapon was “the real deal,” according to his arrest affidavit.

The affidavit, filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, said U.S. Capitol Police officers Sergei Vittone, Ryerson Hill and Joseph Diaz observed a black Toyota Tacoma illegally parked on the south side of unit block East Capitol Street SE.

The truck was parked in a Library of Congress permit parking only spot, per the affidavit, with the Capitol Police noting in a Tuesday statement the vehicle was near the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the library. 

“On the back of the truck was a wooden platform with an approximately 10 ft tall wooden guillotine with what appeared to be a metal blade,” read the affidavit, which Vittone signed Tuesday. 

When Hill asked the man, identified as 35-year-old Philan-Tam-Duy Le, if the guillotine was fully functioning, he replied, “Yeah, it’s the real deal man.”

Interesting that he was only detected because he was illegally parked — the guillotine problem was seemingly noticed after the parking ticket. The Capitol Police have their priorities.

The long-haired 35-year old tattoo artist who worked in Julian, a rightwing “Old West” mountain town 60 miles outside San Diego, as a guest artist at the Berserker Tattoo Studio, until its owner reportedly let him go for alleged drug use, apparently lived in wealthy, coastal, mostly leftwing, Carlsbad, too. (A Jan. 6. protestor given a heavy sentence was from Carlsbad, too.)

Le said he built the 20-foot execution instrument himself and didn’t have ‘any specific reason’ for why he came to Washington to display it in an illegal parking place outside the Capitol and the Supreme Court, which sounds pretty skeevy. He added that he ‘didn’t have any issue’ with any member of Congress.

A District of Columbia judge took him at his word and ignored prosecutors’ request to keep him in jail, taking him at his word that he would show up for his court date, according to the Washington Post:

The judge declined to grant the prosecutors’ request to hold him, citing Le’s lack of criminal history and his cooperation with police so far.

“He didn’t even threaten anyone,” Hildum said during the hearing in arraignment court.

While possessing the guillotine is a “very, very serious thing,” Hildum said, it was “pure speculation” that Le would not show for his next court hearing.

“He was completely cooperative,” Hildum said. “He didn’t flee, he didn’t do anything other than speak to the police officers.”

Read more The problem with Canada: Frenchies

His own father, an old Vietnamese working-class ‘ah pek’ or ‘uncle’ type probably in flip flops much of the time, was taken aback by the news that his son had been caught in this stunt and told NBC 7 he was ‘stupid.’ Both his protestations that his son wasn’t violent, just unhappy with ‘politics, and the son’s own declarations that he meant no harm to anyone were hard to believe, the father obviously not on the same cultural plane as the coastal hipster son, and the son’s denial stated in front of an authentic, not cardboard, execution vehicle of the French Reign of Terror sounding like a pre-made defense of an anticipated arrest and trial.

The family dismissed him as eccentic, the judge dismissed him as a cooperative man of his word, and no answers at all as to why a guillotine execution intrument with blade longer than ten inches, which crosses the threshold of crime in the area, was parked in front of the Capitol and Supreme Court?

The media and to some extent, the family, downplayed his interest in politics with some accounts saying he was a Trump supporter, others saying he hated all politicians, and all sides seemingly saying he was a bit of a nut who wouldn’t understand much about politics anyway.

But I have my doubts on his one. 

A trip to BlueSky social media site created for the radical left tells of a strong fascination for guillotines, with thousands of posts featuring images of them since Trump’s second term, with most targeting conservatives and the wealthy:

It’s not just images: Leftists have been wheeling real guillotines out for a while at their No Kings and other protests:

Ahhh, Oregon

[image or embed]

— Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) (@iwriteok.bsky.social) August 6, 2026 at 5:46 PM

Providence RI update: someone is building a guillotine in their building’s driveway

[image or embed]

— BlonicYouth (@blonicyouth.bsky.social) June 9, 2026 at 8:59 AM

So guilllotines are a ‘thing’ on the radical left, and this loser decided to build one right about when the idea was becoming popular on Bluesky and in other leftist circles and take it to the capital. He claims no harm intended, a judge takes him at his word, and the media blurs the social and political forces where that guillotine fascination is, as driving him.

The left is the political side of violence, and this wretched loser says he doesn’t see anything amiss, or harm done, about this very clear symbol of leftist bloodlust for mass violence and toppling the government which is what the guillotine was first used for.

Cops say they are still looking into it, but how he built this himself, how he financed his travel across the country (no, I don’t believe it was done just from tattoo-parlor freelance earnings) to transport it 2,600 miles, and who his friends are ought to be legitimate topics for inquiry. Was he just cosplaying ‘executioner’ in the video or was he affiliated with antifa, which loves guillotines and dreams of using them on capitalists and President Trump? Did he have confederates with violent intentions? Was the guillotine built to be ‘stolen’ by them and for them to use for their own less harmless purposes? Given the vague strangeness and incompleteness of Le’s answers, one wonders if this was part of a bigger plot to create a reign of terror.

It sounds as though it could be pretty scary actually.

Why this guy is out on the streets again to possibly meet with his confederates is outrageous stuff indeed and ought to not be happening, given the vicious, dangerous atmosphere on the far left. Is something worse in the works?

Read more Economic freedom beats the cruelty of communism.

Image: Screenshot from NBC 7 video, on YouTube