The man charged last week with the attempted murder of Justice Brett Kavanaugh was convinced to call 911 on himself by his sister as he stood nearby the judge’s Maryland home, law enforcement said Tuesday.
In a statement, Marcus Jones, the chief of police in Montgomery County, Maryland, where Kavanaugh lives, said that after noticing US Marshals posted outside the judge’s home, Nicholas Roske “turned around to contemplate his next move. This is when he texted his sister and told her of his intentions and she convinced him to call 911, which he did.”
Roske was arrested early Wednesday morning after telling a 911 operator that he had a gun on him and was having suicidal thoughts.
According to an FBI affidavit, Roske told authorities that he had traveled from California to kill “a specific United States Supreme Court Justice” and that he was upset about the leak of the Supreme Court opinion related to abortion rights, an upcoming gun control case, and the school shooting last month in Uvalde, Texas.
Authorities said last week that the Marshals saw Roske emerge from a taxi outside the judge’s home at 1:05 a.m. “dressed in black clothing and carrying a backpack and a suitcase.” Montgomery County police have said that they responded to a call for service at 1:42 a.m.
“I commend the excellent work of the police dispatcher and call taker, with our Emergency Communications Center, as well as the courageous acts of our officers potentially going into a dangerous and unstable situation to arrest this suspect,” Jones said in the statement.
Roske has been in jail since his arrest and is due back in court on June 22. CNN has reached out to his attorney for comment.
The Washington Post earlier reported the texts between Roske and his sister.
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