A hammer-wielding 29-year-old Washington resident is facing multiple felony charges after allegedly breaking into the state Capitol building in Olympia Sunday night, Oct. 5 setting fires and toppling two iconic busts outside the historic state reception room.
Gunnar McLean Schubert reportedly wreaked havoc for about 10 minutes before the Washington State Patrol arrested him without incident as he left the building, authorities said. He was booked into Thurston County jail and is facing charges of first-degree burglary, first-degree arson, and first-degree malicious mischief.
“It did not seem to be at all politically motivated. It appears to have been a person experiencing a mental health challenge,” said Chris Loftis, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol.
Shortly after 10 p.m., Schubert, a native of Auburn and a former minor league baseball player, used a hammer to smash a first-floor window of the suite of offices shared by several House Democrats, authorities said.
He proceeded to knock over county flags positioned in one corner of the rotunda, and, using lighter fluid, set the Columbia County flag on fire, Washington Lt. Gov. Denny Heck said in an interview.
On the third floor, officials said he broke a glass door to get into the reception room, where he burned a piano bench and attempted to set the carpet on fire. He also tipped over state and national flags and burned them, Heck said. Outside, he knocked over a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. and a much larger one of George Washington. Both had been put back in place by midday Monday.
And some stanchions were thrown down the rotunda stairs, causing a few chips on the marble stairs, according to the Department of Enterprise Services, whose staff first notified law enforcement Sunday night.
“It’s terrible. It’s heartbreaking news,” Heck said of the damage in the state reception room.
The room is used for public tours, class visits, press conferences and bill signings by governors.
It contains “priceless, irreplaceable” items. The carpet, for example, is the original flooring from 1928 and described by the state as the “world’s largest single-loom carpet.”
Schubert played baseball at Gonzaga University in Spokane and was drafted by the Florida Marlins in 2018. His professional career lasted two seasons.
In recent days, Schubert appeared to post repeatedly to Instagram, voicing rambling frustrations with the government, though his political ideology is unclear from the posts. In separate posts, he posed with a gun, invoked a Democratic state lawmaker and wrote current events-themed poems as captions.
Heck said Schubert had dropped by his office three times in the last few months. In those visits, the suspect left notes and small gifts for Heck, although the veteran political leader said he doesn’t know the man.
“I take his family at their word that there are mental health considerations,” Heck said in an interview. “How is it not a political statement to enter the state Capitol building and do damage? He could have entered any of a thousand buildings in Thurston County. Secondly, we do know that he has an Instagram trail of having made strong statements.”
“The truth of the matter is, anytime this happens, whether it’s Paul Pelosi getting his head beat in or Steve Scalise being shot, they are, in all likelihood, both political statements and issues of mental health,” Heck added, referring to separate attacks over the past decade on U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband and Scalise, a congressman from Louisiana.
“It’s not cleanly one or the other, I don’t think,” Heck said. “Hardly ever. It’s some combination, often.”
In a statement, House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, called the Capitol “more than just a building.”
“It is the people’s house, and it must always be a place where legislators, staff, and the public feel safe carrying out the important work of democracy,” she said. “While this act of destruction is disturbing, we will not be deterred. The people’s work will continue, and our commitment to transparency, safety, and service remains unwavering.”
Heck said this incident is another reminder of the “significant escalation in both violence-tinged political rhetoric and actual violence.”
Recent months have seen the killing of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home and the shooting of Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife by the same gunman, and the assassination of Republican political activist Charlie Kirk.
“We must all do our part in turning down the temperature,” Heck said in a statement. “Violent rhetoric, property destruction, and violence against individuals are a cancer on our democratic society.
Washington State Standard Reporter Jake Goldstein-Street contributed to this report.
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and Twitter.
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A bust of George Washington lies tipped over on the third floor of the Washington state Capitol building in Olympia, after a vandal broke in and caused damage on Sunday night. (Photo courtesy of Department of Enterprise Services)
