‘Your dad was a hero’: Biden consoles family of slain Officer William Evans at Capitol Rotunda memorial
President Biden briefly interrupted a memorial for slain Officer William “Billy” Evans at the Capitol Rotunda Tuesday afternoon to pick up a dropped toy for the cop’s 7-year-old daughter.
Biden, sitting several feet away from Evans’ family, got out of his seat to hand the ornamental replica of the Capitol back to little Abigail Evans.
The kind gesture caught the eye of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who stopped her speech at the podium to acknowledge Biden’s act.
“A greater compliment does no one have than the president of the United States looking after your toys,” Pelosi chuckled.
Biden and congressional leaders gathered at the Capitol Tuesday to pay tribute to Evans, 41, over a week after he was killed in an April 2 car attack while securing a checkpoint near the building.
His body was to lay in honor at the Rotunda until Tuesday evening, the second Capitol Officer to receive such an honor since the Jan. 6 insurrection by a pro-Trump mob.
Earlier in the ceremony, Biden noted he had buried two of his own children, and offered a poignant message of condolence to the slain officer’s family.
“My prayer for all of you is that a day will come when you have that memory and you smile before you bring a tear to your eyes,” Biden said, looking directly at Evans’ family. “I promise you it’s going to come. It just takes awhile.
“Your son, your husband, your brother, your dad was a hero,” Biden said. “And he’s part of you.”
Biden said Evans reminded him of friends from his own childhood in Delaware and Pennsylvania.
“I didn’t know Billy, but I knew Billy,” the president said. “Billy was always the kid that you know if you got in a fight and you’re outnumbered three to one, he’d still jump in.
“He was the one who always kept his word. If he said he’d be there, he’d be there,” Biden said. “He was the one who, just like the folks I grew up with, wasn’t capable of saying no when you needed him.”
Members of the National Guard lined the street and saluted as the hearse carrying Evans’ flag-draped casket entered the Capitol complex. His former colleagues gathered on the Capitol’s East Plaza Front while church bells rang in the distance.
Evans’ heartbroken family, including his two children, watched as the casket was carried up the Capitol steps.
Evans was killed and another officer was injured after Noah Green, 25, rammed his car into a barricade on the Senate side of the Capitol. Green, of Indiana, emerged from the mangled vehicle brandishing a knife, triggering cops to shoot him dead.
Evans’ death came just three months after a violent mob of Trump supporters laid siege on the Capitol, injuring dozens of members of law enforcement in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
Capitol Officer Brian Sicknick died after engaging with the rioters, though officials do not yet know exactly what caused his death. Two men have been arrested and charged with assaulting him with bear spray.
Sicknick and Evans are two of only six Capitol Police officers who have been killed in the line of duty in the force’s nearly 200-year history, according to the department.
Sicknick also laid in honor at the Rotunda. Capitol Police Officer Jacob Chestnut and Det. John Gibson were similarly honored after they were killed in a 1998 shooting incident.
Civil rights icon Rosa Parks laid in honor at the Capitol Rotunda after her death in 2005, as did Rev. Billy Graham in 2018.
