AOL News has a new home! The Huffington Post.

Click here to visit the new home of AOL News!

Hot on HuffPost:

See More Stories
Nation

Pentagon Hit by Gunfire, Briefly Shuts Down

Oct 19, 2010 – 2:56 PM
Text Size
Sharon Weinberger

Sharon Weinberger Contributor

(Oct. 19) -- Gunshots struck the Pentagon before dawn today, and authorities briefly shut down the massive complex and a nearby interstate as they searched for a possible source.

An officer with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency heard what he believed were gunshots coming from the south parking area of the Pentagon just before 5 a.m., according to Agence France-Presse. The Pentagon's entrances were shut down, as well as part of I-395, for about 45 minutes while Pentagon and local law enforcement officers searched the area, according to reports.

At a briefing hours later, Steve Calvery, the head of the Pentagon's police force, said fragments from two bullets were still lodged in two windows, which had been shattered but not penetrated, radio station WTOP in Washington reported. The windows were on adjacent floors of the building in an area that was under renovation and unoccupied.

Calvery said the bullets probably came from a high-powered rifle, and officials called the shooting a "random event."

It's unclear whether today's shooting is related to bullet holes discovered earlier this week at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., about 30 miles south of the Pentagon. Employees there discovered bullets from a rifle that had struck windows high up in the building, MSNBC reported.
Filed under: Nation
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.


2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ON FACEBOOK