It was a jarring beginning to the workday when Capitol Police walkie talkies started blaring “shots fired” shortly before 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.
A female who had been observed driving erratically led Capitol Police on a brief chase at the southwest end of the Capitol grounds, near the Botanic Garden. Shots were fired but no one was hurt in an incident the department itself is investigating. The suspect was arrested and taken into custody.
It is unclear when the public might know more about what happened. Being a part of the legislative branch, Capitol Police are not subject to the same open records laws that usually serve as a way of finding out what has happened in violent episodes involving subjects and police.
Gun violence is nothing new to Capitol Hill, whether it involves Puerto Rican separatists shooting up the House chamber on March 1, 1954, to a gunman slaying Capitol Police officers John Gibson and Jacob Chestnut on July 24, 1998 in the Capitol, to the Oct. 3, 2013 incident that resulted in injured police officers and the shooting death of Miriam Carey, who had led police on a car chase on the Capitol grounds.
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