Shots fired at U.S. Capitol

[Adam]

US Capitol in lockdown, reports of shots fired outside

The U.S. Capitol is in lockdown, after sources say shots were fired outside.

According to U.S. Capitol Police, officers are injured.

Sirens are going off in the Capitol, and people on the Hill are being told to "shelter in place."

Senior congressional staffers and one eyewitness told Fox News the incident began with a car chase, which came to a stop near the Capitol building. Sources said several police cars were in pursuit. When they boxed in the other vehicle, the driver got out and five or six shots were fired, sources said.

Witnesses saw a baby being taken from the car.



__________________


No word on whether Harry Reid was trying to make a point....

[Adam]

Apparently, the shutdown has caused the "Gun-Free Zone" signs to not work.

[Billy Jingo]

Apparently, the shutdown has caused the "Gun-Free Zone" signs to not work.

No to mention the "Attempted-Murder-Free-Zones" seem to be non-functioning.

No word yet on the "Rape-Free-Zones" and whether or not people are still raping.

[Lanie]

I'm glad that the President and everybody else is okay.

[Adam]

Uh oh.

A crazed Connecticut woman who tried to ram her way into the White House was shot and killed Thursday after she led police on a high-speed chase through Washington that left one police officer injured.

The unidentified woman, who ABC News identified as a 34-year-old Stamford woman with a history of “mental health issues,” had a child in the car with her who was not hurt, officials said.

[....]

The drama began around 2:20 p.m., officials said, after the female motorist --- driving a black Infiniti – sped into the driveway leading into the White House and tried to breach security at 15th and E Streets, officials said.

Thwarted by the pylons and confronted by cops with their guns drawn, the woman spun the car around and hit the gas – knocking a Secret Service agent over the hood of the car as she sped away.

With Capitol police and Secret Service agents in hot pursuit, the woman raced 12 blocks toward the Capitol, chased at speeds of up to 80 mph at some points.

At Constitution Ave. and Second St., she collided with a Capitol Police car and then barreled into some barricades outside the Hart Senate Office building, Dine said.

Cornered, the woman came out of the car and was cut down by gunfire, officials said.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who said he was briefed by Homeland Security, told the Associated Press that it didn’t appear she was armed. “There was no return fire,” he said.

Whoops! Someone best be getting in a whole PILE of trouble over that one. You don't get to just waste someone for the crime of getting out of their car unarmed, even if they did just try to breach security at the White House and were driving like a maniac around DC (like anyone would even notice someone driving like a maniac around DC).

This is bound to have the Ruby Ridgers up in arms in no time, if they aren't already.

[Billy Jingo]

Once again we see the futility of traffic laws.

[gary m]

Meanwhile Obama is praying "please let her be a white Tea Party supporter".

[Adam]

Meanwhile Obama is praying "please let her be a white Tea Party supporter".

Oh, I'm sure that's already the claim out there. I haven't gone to check yet, but I'd lay strong odds that BSDNC, CNN, and of course the Lefty blogs are already claiming that she was a white supremacist TEA Party member who owns 874 fully-automatic AR-15s and at least thirteen different cannons ranging up to nineteen-pounders.

[gary m]

Oh, I'm sure that's already the claim out there. I haven't gone to check yet, but I'd lay strong odds that BSDNC, CNN, and of course the Lefty blogs are already claiming that she was a white supremacist TEA Party member who owns 874 fully-automatic AR-15s and at least thirteen different cannons ranging up to nineteen-pounders.

It has been on quite a few internet news sources and since there is nothing mentioned about her race or politics, I am guessing she is not white or hispanic.

[phillygirl]

Uh oh.

A crazed Connecticut woman who tried to ram her way into the White House was shot and killed Thursday after she led police on a high-speed chase through Washington that left one police officer injured.

The unidentified woman, who ABC News identified as a 34-year-old Stamford woman with a history of “mental health issues,” had a child in the car with her who was not hurt, officials said.

[....]

The drama began around 2:20 p.m., officials said, after the female motorist --- driving a black Infiniti – sped into the driveway leading into the White House and tried to breach security at 15th and E Streets, officials said.

Thwarted by the pylons and confronted by cops with their guns drawn, the woman spun the car around and hit the gas – knocking a Secret Service agent over the hood of the car as she sped away.

With Capitol police and Secret Service agents in hot pursuit, the woman raced 12 blocks toward the Capitol, chased at speeds of up to 80 mph at some points.

At Constitution Ave. and Second St., she collided with a Capitol Police car and then barreled into some barricades outside the Hart Senate Office building, Dine said.

Cornered, the woman came out of the car and was cut down by gunfire, officials said.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who said he was briefed by Homeland Security, told the Associated Press that it didn’t appear she was armed. “There was no return fire,” he said.

Whoops! Someone best be getting in a whole PILE of trouble over that one. You don't get to just waste someone for the crime of getting out of their car unarmed, even if they did just try to breach security at the White House and were driving like a maniac around DC (like anyone would even notice someone driving like a maniac around DC).

This is bound to have the Ruby Ridgers up in arms in no time, if they aren't already.

I disagree. When it comes to attempts made on our governing bodies (Supreme Court, Members of Congress, Executive) I think you shoot first, check for arms later. Had this woman had a suicide vest, etc. it would have been all over for whomever was in the area. Sorry, crazy doesn't get you a pass in post 9-11. Good work.

[gary m]

So it now looks like the headline for tomorrow will read
"Republican government shutdown forces police to shoot mentally ill black woman"

[Adam]

I disagree. When it comes to attempts made on our governing bodies (Supreme Court, Members of Congress, Executive) I think you shoot first, check for arms later. Had this woman had a suicide vest, etc. it would have been all over for whomever was in the area. Sorry, crazy doesn't get you a pass in post 9-11. Good work.

I can't really agree with "shoot first and ask questions later" just because it's Congress or the President or whoever. These people aren't royalty (at least in theory, anyway). I'm most uncomfortable with a standard of "well, we had to kill him/her because ... Congress, that's why."

The cops don't get to use "shoot first and ask questions later" if they are defending you or me; if the NYPD wasted some younger Black guy because they thought he was threating you or me on Times Square when in fact he was unarmed, there would be absolute Hell to pay, and rightly so. Equal protection. While I don't have a problem with high-ranking members of government getting extra security measures, e.g. the Speaker of the House having a private military plane instead of flying Delta, I have to draw the line at just offing someone because they're a perceived threat, and a distant one at that. If she had somehow run into the well of the Senate, OK, then the suicide vest theory comes into play. On a street corner with several substantially-built buildings between her and Congress? I don't care what kind of suicide vest she has on, she's not going to hurt any high-ranking government officials that way.

[phillygirl]

I can't really agree with "shoot first and ask questions later" just because it's Congress or the President or whoever. These people aren't royalty (at least in theory, anyway). I'm most uncomfortable with a standard of "well, we had to kill him/her because ... Congress, that's why."

The cops don't get to use "shoot first and ask questions later" if they are defending you or me; if the NYPD wasted some younger Black guy because they thought he was threating you or me on Times Square when in fact he was unarmed, there would be absolute Hell to pay, and rightly so. Equal protection. While I don't have a problem with high-ranking members of government getting extra security measures, e.g. the Speaker of the House having a private military plane instead of flying Delta, I have to draw the line at just offing someone because they're a perceived threat, and a distant one at that. If she had somehow run into the well of the Senate, OK, then the suicide vest theory comes into play. On a street corner with several substantially-built buildings between her and Congress? I don't care what kind of suicide vest she has on, she's not going to hurt any high-ranking government officials that way.

Don't care. You don't get to engage in behavior that appears to be terroristic in nature by targeting our government. You make a stupid mistake like that, you've endangered lives and you appear to be on a collision course with high value targets...you get shot. If the president was walking across the lawn of the white house and the woman starts driving towards the gate towards him...you shoot her. Worry later about whether or not she was going to stop before she reached him. She disregarded enough lawful orders to stop that the next lawful order is a bullet.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I can't really agree with "shoot first and ask questions later" just because it's Congress or the President or whoever. These people aren't royalty (at least in theory, anyway). I'm most uncomfortable with a standard of "well, we had to kill him/her because ... Congress, that's why."

The cops don't get to use "shoot first and ask questions later" if they are defending you or me; if the NYPD wasted some younger Black guy because they thought he was threating you or me on Times Square when in fact he was unarmed, there would be absolute Hell to pay, and rightly so. Equal protection. While I don't have a problem with high-ranking members of government getting extra security measures, e.g. the Speaker of the House having a private military plane instead of flying Delta, I have to draw the line at just offing someone because they're a perceived threat, and a distant one at that. If she had somehow run into the well of the Senate, OK, then the suicide vest theory comes into play. On a street corner with several substantially-built buildings between her and Congress? I don't care what kind of suicide vest she has on, she's not going to hurt any high-ranking government officials that way.

She wasn't unarmed. 3000 or so pounds of metal and other stuff is a weapon, once it's aimed at people. She put a lot of lives - including her own child's - at serious risk. And now maybe the kid can have a life instead of languishing in CPS purgatory while the courts decide if a stone frigging crazy mother is better than being adopted by strangers.

[Adam]

She wasn't unarmed. 3000 or so pounds of metal and other stuff is a weapon, once it's aimed at people. She put a lot of lives - including her own child's - at serious risk. And now maybe the kid can have a life instead of languishing in CPS purgatory while the courts decide if a stone frigging crazy mother is better than being adopted by strangers.

Not to get all tinfoily, but does this look like a car that "rammed" the immovable, reinforced concrete barricades at the White House that are deeply mounted into the street and well below?





I go out of my way to not embrace the tinfoil, but there's something about this whole narrative that simply isn't adding up to me.

• Some woman drives to Washington from Connecticut, some 500 miles or more, with her baby in a car seat. She apparently does so in about seven hours, based upon witness reports.
• She then "rams" immovable concrete barricades at Fifteenth and Pennsylvania with her car, a late-model Infiniti, and literally does not scuff the paint in the process.
• Afterwards, she manages to back up and turn around, only then supposedly running over a Capitol Police officer who was for no readily apparent reason guarding the White House for free, since he was not getting paid to do so according to his comrade. Again, even though he is wearing body armor and a weapon, there literally isn't the tiniest scrape on the paint of the hood of her car.
• Afterwards she leads police on a 90-MPH chase down Pennsylvania Avenue at 3:00 in the afternoon on a weekday in Washington DC. I couldn't get ten feet in an hour on Pennsylvania Avenue at 3:00 on a weekday in DC, but somehow she managed to hit 80-90 MPH in a span of just two blocks, something that Infiniti says their car is not capable of doing even with a hurricane behind it.
• Then she goes through two of the most notorious roundabouts in DC, apparently still at 90 MPH, apparently still in mid-afternoon traffic, and not a single cop gets close to her.
• Then she somehow continues down Constitution Avenue, one of the busiest streets in the entire District, in the middle of afternoon traffic, still at 80-90 MPH, only to apparently crash into a garbage can and absolutely nothing else.
• The police involved make absolutely no effort to "box in" her car once it had crashed and allegedly become disabled, which is standard procedure even for rent-a-cops, much less federal law enforcement. If I took a pot-shot at the President and then drove away, do you seriously think that the Secret Service would not "box in" my car?
• She then exits the car in an attempt to surrender and gets shot dead with three shots, including one from a sniper on the Capitol steps, who has somehow managed to get into place and pre-sighted his sniper rifle upon her in the two minutes or so that this entire event has taken place. And she never had a gun to begin with.

Someone please tell me how that adds up to anything other than the local/federal cops just wasting some woman for no particularly good reason.