(Newswire.net — April 15, 2015) — Police arrested a man from Florida who in broad daylight landed a gyrocopter – an ultralight helicopter – in front of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. News agencies reported that 61-year-old Doug Hughes of Florida landed a gyrocopter Wednesday afternoon on the west lawn of the US capitol.
According to eyewitnesses near the Capitol, the police rushed to the lawn on the east end of the National Mall and arrested a man after he landed. During the arrest, Capitol Hill was under the lock down.
According to a Tampa Bay Times, Hughes fulfilled his promise to deliver letters to the each member of Congress in a matter that everyone would notice. He wanted to “draw attention” to the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in the Citizens United case, which had to do with corporations contributing to political causes.
“I’m not promoting myself,” Hughes told the paper prior to its publication. “I’m trying to direct millions of people to information, to a menu of organizations that are working together to fix Congress.”
The Tampa Bay Times published a video with Hughes full plan to “buzz through the air at 45 miles per hour at about 300 feet up in an ultralight gyrocopter toward Washington, D.C., toward protected airspace, where, if his plan works, he’ll land on the lawn of the United States Capitol building and deliver the mail.”
“We’re heading full-throttle toward a breakdown,” Hughes told the paper of the Citizens United case. “There’s no question that we need a government, but we don’t have to accept that it’s a corrupt government that sells out to the highest bidder. We can have a government that works for the people, that answers to the people, that can only take money from the people in small amounts.”
“He’s not a suicide bomber, he’s a patriot,” said Shanahan, a 65-year-old co-worker and a friend of Hughes, who reported a flight to the secret service an hour before the flying mailman landed. “I was scared to death they were going to kill him,” Shanahan said. “My thanks goes out to whomever it was who decided not to pull the trigger.”
Hughes told the Tampa Bay Times he never thought he was in danger. “I don’t believe that the authorities were going to shoot down a 61-year-old mailman in a flying bicycle,” Hughes told the paper.
“I don’t have any defense, okay, but I don’t believe that anybody wants to personally take responsibility for the fallout,” he said.