A female driver attempting to breach White House security this morning was shot, according to The Washington Post, following a car chase which ended at the Capitol building and injured a policeman.
There are conflicting reports on the condition of the driver, but major news outlets report her as dead or injured.
“One of our officers was struck. He appears to be conscious and breathing,” said Chief Kim Dine, the Capitol Hill police chief, in a press conference. “As far as we know, no other officer has been shot.”
A child found in the car with the driver was later removed from the scene. Witnesses saw the woman and child speed away in a black Infiniti while shots from policemen were fired at them.
Silicon Valley House representative, Mike Honda, who was in Washington at the time, reports the safety of his staff.
“As details emerge, my thoughts go out to Capitol Hill police & those injured. My staff and I are safe,” tweeted the congressman.
In a phone interview between TalonWP and Anthony Kusich, Honda’s Communications director in DC, he recounted the scene at the office early this afternoon EST. Due to lock down, he was not able to leave the building and observe the scene on a larger scale.
“Every office has a little corner that if there’s an emergency, we alert everyone in all the offices for all the congressmen,” he said. “Once we heard there was an emergency outside, we took shelter in the central office and waited until the show was over.”
Harker alumnus and current sophomore at Georgetown University Daanish Jamal (‘12) reflects on the shooting, stating that the trauma had no direct impact on nearby students as far as he knows.
“I haven’t heard much, just what I’ve read in the papers,” Daanish said. “Spooky stuff.”
Margaret Krackeler (‘12), also a sophomore at Georgetown University, describes the students’ reaction to both the government shutdown and the shooting.
“We’re in the mix of it all. Everyone here’s gonna be talking about it for a while,” she said. “It’s a really big deal. Any shooting is. It’s going to cause a lot more discussion.”
The shooting took place two days after the government shutdown.