Two days after Minnesota's legislative session ended, an intruder entered the State Capitol's House chambers seeking to meet with a senator. When no one showed up, he pinned threatening messages on handwritten signs to the clerk's podium using a large knife, according to charges filed Wednesday.
The man, Robert Joseph Anderson, 47, of Minneapolis, slipped through the Capitol's active construction zone, which is closed to the public, and wrote messages that "were cryptic but disturbing. They made references to religion, war on his family and murders," according to a criminal complaint.
Anderson was charged Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court with first- and second-degree burglary, along with threats of violence.
According to the complaint:
A State Patrol Capitol security officer responded to a call about a suspicious person in the House Chamber around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday after an assistant sergeant-at-arms found a man hanging signs. The man told the sergeant-at-arms he was there to see a "particular senator" and instructed her not to remove his signs.
Fearing for her own safety, the sergeant-at-arms left and contacted Capitol security dispatch. When officers arrived, the man was gone.
Troopers found papers secured to the chamber's podium by knife point. The documents were a harassment restraining order filed against Anderson in Washington County last month.
"His statements were cryptic and illogical at times," the complaint said of the signs. "He appeared to be very upset over the restraining order against him."