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Posted: Friday, 26 May 2006 4:04PM
All Clear After Scare On Capitol Hill
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WASHINGTON (CBS / AP) -- After reports of gunfire at a House office building Friday, U.S. Capitol police said the building is now safe for normal activities.
Police with guns drawn briefly sealed off the Capitol and launched a floor-by-floor search of the largest office structure on Capitol Hill after an unidentified caller reported gunfire. Amid chaos and confusion, police said there were no injuries, arrests or confirmation of the gunfire.
"The report is that shots were fired" at 10:30 a.m. EDT in the garage of the Rayburn House Office Building, said Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. A single telephone call from an unidentified individual triggered the massive police deployment.
However, as CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart reports, a hammer was mistaken for the sound of gunfire.
A woman stepped off an elevator in the basement garage of the Rayburn Building and heard what she thought was gunfire, Stewart reports. What she did not know was that the elevator next to her was under repair and a maintenance man was on its roof whacking away with a hammer.
"FBI and Capitol Hill police have duplicated the sound and believe that's what she heard," reports Stewart.
Police on high alert lined the street between the Capitol and the Rayburn Building with rifles prominently displayed, and four ambulances, two fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were on standby outside the office structure. Police methodically searched the sprawling building, where congressional staff had locked themselves into their offices as a precaution.
The Senate was in session at the time, but the House was not as most lawmakers had left for the Memorial Day recess.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., conducting a House Intelligence Committee hearing, interrupted a witness to request those attending the meeting to remain in the room and said the doors must be closed.
"It's a little unsettling to get a BlackBerry message put in front of you that says there's gunfire in the building," he said.
Indeed, one congressional staff member was taken to a hospital after suffering a "panic attack" during the lockdown and search, Schneider said. She was released a short time later.
The search was a complicated one. The building, which covers an entire city block, is connected to a second office building by an underground tunnel. That building, in turn, is connected to the Capitol by a second underground tunnel.
The Rayburn House Office Building was completed in early 1965 and is the third of three office buildings constructed for the House of Representatives. It sits across the street from the Capitol. The building has four stories above ground, plus two basements and three levels of underground garage space.
Steven Broderick, press spokesman for Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., was in his car in the Rayburn garage Friday morning getting ready to drive his boss to the airport when he was ordered by a Capitol Police officer to park the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. The officer then told him to run toward an exit where other officers where gathered.
"He just told me to run and don't look back," Broderick said.
Police at the Capitol quickly closed all doors, stopping people from either entering the building. Tourists were herded into a first-floor chamber in the middle of the building.
The Capitol was reopened within an hour, then sealed off again by police, and eventually opened to the public again about 12:30 p.m. EDT.
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Copyright 2006, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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