Minnesota Capitol intruder left behind knife, threatening signs, charges say

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.

When contacted by police, the woman who had filed the protective order said her family was safe and that she hadn't seen Anderson in more than a month. She said she obtained the restraining order because Anderson "made uninvited visits, harassing phone calls and frightened [her] with threatening behavior," according to court records.

Anderson had been treated for abusing methamphetamine, she told police, but she feared he was using the drug again because he "began to act very strange."

Anderson was arrested Tuesday night at his home and booked into the Ramsey County jail. He admitted to the break-in, telling authorities that he entered the Capitol on the building's north side, the complaint says.

He remains jailed in lieu of $100,000 bail. Anderson's criminal record includes two DWIs from the mid-1990s.