Rep. Cummings Says Someone Tried To Break Into His Home. 'Too Bad!' Trump Says

By Merrit Kennedy / NPR

Published August 2, 2019 at 10:24 AM PDT

This story was published more than 5 years ago.

House oversight committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said he was able to scare away an intruder at his residence, after being alerted by his security system.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland says an intruder tried to gain entry into his home in Baltimore early Saturday.

Cummings said the incident happened at about 3:40 a.m. ET. "I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house," he said in a statement.

President Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the Democratic lawmaker in recent days on Twitter, tweeted this in response Friday morning: "Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed. Too bad!"

Become a KPBS sponsor

Cummings chairs the House oversight committee, which has taken the lead in investigating the Trump administration.

The Baltimore Police Department's incident report said a black man described by a witness as in his early 40s entered Cummings' apartment building through the front door. It said that two unnamed residents received a security system motion alert and that a male resident "confronted the suspect and yelled." The male resident's wife said she saw the suspect fleeing by bicycle, according to the police report provided to NPR.

"No property was reported stolen," the report stated. It also said that the front door showed signs of forced entry but that police investigators couldn't determine whether that was "due to previous damage to the door for a forced entry conducted by the fire department for an unrelated incident."

The suspect was described as wearing khaki shorts and a black fitted hat with a red, upside-down "U" shape.

Cummings thanked the Baltimore Police Department for responding to the incident. He did not respond specifically to Trump's tweet, though it was criticized by Nikki Haley, who served in the Trump administration as ambassador to the United Nations. "This is so unnecessary," she tweeted.

Become a KPBS sponsor

The attempted break-in happened several hours prior to a series of tweets from Trump in which he called Cummings a "brutal bully" and described his district as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."

Cummings represents Maryland's 7th Congressional District, which includes part of the city of Baltimore and portions of Howard and Baltimore counties.