U.S. Capitol reopened after reports of gunfire nearby

WASHINGTON -- Guns drawn, police briefly sealed off the Capitol Friday 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.

"We have not gotten any reports of anybody being captured, anybody being arrested," she said.

On high alert, police lined the street between the Capitol and the Rayburn building, rifles prominently displayed, and four ambulances, two firetrucks 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.

"Every square inch of the Rayburn building is going to be cleared out today" as police make sure everyone in the structure belongs there, Schneider said at a second news conference.

An Associated Press reporter overheard a dispatch on a police radio saying police were looking for someone who was about 6 feet tall. It was not known whether the dispatch was related to the incident at Rayburn.

"Right now we want to err on the side of caution," Schneider said. "Lives could be at risk. If we have a gunman in the building we certainly want to find him. It's premature to assume that it may not be a gunman."

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.

The search was a complicated one and police said it could take hours. 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 U.S. House of Representatives. It sits across the street from the Capitol. The building has four stories above ground, two basements and three levels of underground garage space.

"During the search, the police officers will knock three times on each office door, announce 'United States Capitol Police,' knock three additional times," and then confirm their identity by speaking a code word, it said.

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.

A second Associated Press reporter heard noise outside a Rayburn press room and peeked out the door. A police officer, gun drawn, shouted, "Get in the room. Get in the room."

The U.S. Capitol Police Department's Containment & Emergency Response Team maintains an indoor shooting range in the basement of the Rayburn building, according to the department's Web site. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate to Congress, raised the possibility that noises from a nearby construction site were mistaken for gunfire.

At the Capitol, police 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.