WASHINGTON (AP) — A man accused of firing a gun at law enforcement officers near the Washington Monument this week was walking along the path of Vice President JD Vance's motorcade before the shooting and made a vulgar remark about the White House after the confrontation, according to a court filing Wednesday.
Michael Marx, 45, of Midland, Texas, was shot multiple times during Monday’s confrontation and was in the back of an ambulance on his way to a hospital when he said, “'F(asterisk)(asterisk)k the White House' and “Kill me, kill me, kill me,'” a Secret Service agent said in an affidavit.
The sworn statement does not specify whether investigators believe Marx had a particular target.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement that her office "will pursue the most serious charges available against anyone who brings gun violence to our streets, particularly when that violence unfolds steps from the seat of our government and the path of the Vice President of the United States.”
Marx was walking along the path of Vance's motorcade when officers spotted him near the intersection of 15th Street and Independence Avenue. The officers were responding to a Secret Service agent's report that Marx was seen near with White House complex with a firearm concealed on the right side of his body, the affidavit says.
Marx pulled a firearm from his waistband as he ran away from Secret Service officers and fired at one of them, but a bystander behind the officer was shot in the leg, the affidavit says. Officers returned fire and struck Marx in his abdomen, a hand and his left arm, according to the filing. It says Marx spit at officers as they provided him with aid after the shooting.
The teenage bystander was not seriously injured and has been released from a hospital, ABC News reported. ABC was first to report what the suspect allegedly said after the shooting.
Marx was charged in a complaint with assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, discharging a firearm during a violent crime and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
The shooting came just over a week after a California man tried to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner while armed with guns and knives. Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in that incident with attempting to assassinate the president and firing a gun at a Secret Service officer.
Around the time of Monday's shooting, President Donald Trump was holding a small business event at the White House, which was briefly locked down as authorities investigated.
Online court records did not immediately list the name of a lawyer representing Marx.
Marx has used aliases, including Michael Patrick and Michael Zavici, according to the affidavit. It says Marx had a 2011 drug trafficking conviction in Florida that made it illegal for him to possess a firearm.
Journalists report as U.S. Secret Service and local police remain after a person was shot by law enforcement near the Washington Monument in Washington, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
Metropolitan Police Department officers respond after a person was shot by law enforcement near the Washington Monument in Washington, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
PRAIA, Cape Verde (AP) — Two patients with hantavirus and one suspected of infection were evacuated from a cruise ship and being flown to the Netherlands on Wednesday, the U.N. health agency said. The ship at the center of a deadly outbreak departed Cape Verde with nearly 150 people on board and headed to Spain’s Canary Islands.
Associated Press footage showed health workers in protective gear evacuating three passengers, including the ship's British doctor, who Spain's health ministry said had been in “serious condition” but has improved. An air ambulance later departed.
Three people have died, and one body remained on the ship, the World Health Organization said. Of the eight cases recorded, five were confirmed by laboratory testing.
Hantavirus usually spreads by inhaling contaminated rodent droppings and can spread person-to-person, though that is rare, according to the WHO, whose top epidemic expert said the risk to the public is low.
Health officials in Europe and Africa are trying to identify people who may have had contact with people who earlier left the ship, which departed April 1 from South America for stops in Antarctica and several remote Atlantic islands.
Two Argentine officials investigating the origins of the outbreak said the government's leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while bird-watching in the city of Ushuaia before boarding.
They said the couple visited a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, with the investigation ongoing. Authorities previously said Ushuaia and surrounding Tierra del Fuego province had never recorded a hantavirus case.
The Dutch foreign ministry said the three people evacuated were a 41-year-old Dutch national, a 56-year-old British national and a 65-year-old German national who would be transferred to specialized hospitals in Europe. WHO said Wednesday that testing in Senegal confirmed that two of the evacuees were infected with hantavirus.
Two of the evacuees remain in "serious condition," Dutch ship operator Oceanwide Expeditions said, and the third had no symptoms but was “closely associated” with a German passenger who died on the MV Hondius ship on May 2.
Health officials said passengers and crew members still on the ship are without symptoms and isolating in their cabins. Their journey to the Canary Islands will take three or four days, Spain’s health ministry said, adding that the arrival “won´t represent any risk for the public."
Still, the Canary Islands regional president , Fernando Clavijo, said he worried about the risk to the population and demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Authorities said passengers tested positive for the Andes virus, a species of hantavirus found in South America, primarily in Argentina and Chile. The virus can spread between people, though that’s rare and only through close contact, according to the WHO. The health agency has never seen a hantavirus outbreak on a ship.
“This is not the next COVID, but it is a serious infectious disease,” the WHO's top epidemic expert, Maria Van Kerkhove, said. “Most people will never be exposed to this.”
Two Dutch infectious diseases experts were joining the ship, Van Kerkhove said. Access to clinical care is important, she said, because infected people can develop severe acute respiratory distress and need oxygen or mechanical ventilation. The hantavirus incubation period can be one to six weeks, or more, she said.
The ship's itinerary included stops across the South Atlantic, including mainland Antarctica and the remote islands of South Georgia, Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension.
Authorities in Switzerland said a former passenger who tested positive was being treated at a Zurich hospital. South African authorities earlier said two passengers who were transferred there tested positive. One, a British man, was in intensive care; the other collapsed and died in South Africa.
Swiss health office spokesperson Simon Ming said the patient there had left the ship during its St. Helena stop. It was not clear when or how he traveled to Switzerland and how many other countries he might have passed through.
The patient’s wife hasn’t shown symptoms but is self-isolating as a precaution, a statement by the office said.
“There is currently no risk to the Swiss public," the office said, while looking into whether the patient had come into contact with others.
At St. Helena, the body of the Dutch man suspected to be the first hantavirus case on board was taken off the ship. His wife flew to South Africa, where she collapsed at the Johannesburg airport and died.
Later, a British man was evacuated at Ascension Island and taken to South Africa.
The ship's operator has not said if other people left at those or other locations.
The South African health ministry says officials have traced 42 out of 62 people, including health workers, they believe had contact with the two infected passengers who traveled there. The 42 tested negative for hantavirus.
But 20 people still need to be traced, including five people who may have been on flights to South Africa with some of the passengers as well as flight crew members.
Some may have now traveled overseas, the ministry said.
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Keaten from Geneva. Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria; Mark Banchereau in Dakar, Senegal; Joseph Wilson in Barcelona; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Michelle Gumede and Mogomotsi Magome in Johannesburg, contributed to this report.
This version corrects to say the evacuated doctor is British.
An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
An air ambulance takes off with evacuated patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship from the airport in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
The MV Hondius cruise ship is anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear arrive to evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Wednesday, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
A night view of the MV Hondius cruise ship anchored at a port in Praia, Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Misper Apawu)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
An aerial view of the MV Hondius Dutch cruise ship anchored in the Atlantic off Cape Verde, Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Arilson Almeida)
