Live updates: Biden laments strain on Capitol Police as he speaks in personal terms at slain officer’s service

Biden lamented that there has “never been more strain” on Capitol Police officers and recalled in deeply personal terms his own loss of family as he spoke Tuesday at a service in the Capitol Rotunda for Evans, the second member of the force to lie in honor there in recent months.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Biden said, as he addressed members of Evans’s family, including his mother and two young children, Logan and Abigail. Logan wore his father’s police cap for part of the ceremony.

“Hold Logan and Abigail as tightly as you can because as long as you have them, you’ve got Billy,” Biden said, referencing the children’s slain father.

Biden recalled the call he received as a senator from Delaware in December 1972 alerting him that his wife and 1-year-old daughter had been killed in an automobile accident. He also touched on the death of his adult son Beau Biden from brain cancer in 2015.

Evans was killed this month when a man rammed him and another officer with his vehicle. He will lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda until early Tuesday evening.

The ceremony in the Rotunda, attended by lawmakers and Capitol Police officers, began with Margaret G. Kibben, the House chaplain, saying, “This hallowed hall is stained with our tears, its luster dulled by our grief.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) remembered Evans as “a fellow of infinite jest who wrung joy and laughter out of life’s smallest moments.”

“Logan, Abigail, I want you to know that we are forever indebted to your dad,” Schumer said. “We will remember his sacrifice and your sacrifice forever.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Evans had joined “a pantheon of heroes who have given their lives to defend this Capitol, including on January 6th,” a reference to the violent takeover of the complex by supporters of President Donald Trump.

Following that episode, Brian D. Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died of injuries he suffered during the attack, was given the distinction of lying in honor in the Rotunda.