Shots at Capitol sends tourists 'just screaming and running'
WASHINGTON - Oliver and Melissa Schmittenberg were standing with their children Monday afternoon outside the Capitol, snapping the classic photo of the iconic dome, when police began running at them, guns drawn, pointing and barking an order:
WASHINGTON - Oliver and Melissa Schmittenberg were standing with their children Monday afternoon outside the Capitol, snapping the classic photo of the iconic dome, when police began running at them, guns drawn, pointing and barking an order:
Run!
"That's all they said," Oliver Schmittenberg said.
Suddenly, a leisurely spring break afternoon for the Perrysburg, Ohio, family turned into a sprint across the Capitol grounds.
"When there's men with machine guns, you can't run fast enough," Schmittenberg said hours later.
"People were just screaming and running," his wife said.
At a security screening area for the Capitol Visitors Center, a man had pulled what appeared to be a weapon and pointed it at officers, according to the Capitol Police Chief, Matthew Verderosa. Officers shot and wounded the suspect and recovered a weapon. A female bystander also suffered a non-life-threatening injury.
The incident lasted just minutes on an afternoon Congress was not in session. But the timing still made it tense: it unfolded just days after a terror attack in Belgium rattled Europe, and during a stretch when Washington draws many tourists lured by the cherry blossoms.
Police locked down the Capitol for roughly an hour, ordering staff and visitors told to shelter in place.
Verderosa said the incident was the act "of a single person" known to Capitol police. "There is no reason to believe that this is anything more than a criminal act," he said.
The suspected attacker was being treated at a hospital, though his condition was not known Monday afternoon. Several news outlets later identified him as Larry Russell Dawson of Tennessee. Last year he reportedly shouted that he was "a prophet of God" from the House balcony.
The Associated Press said he also had received a "stay away order" from the D.C. Superior Court in October, barring him from the Capitol grounds.
None of that was clear, though in the first hectic minutes as gunfire erupted.
All tourists inside the building heard was the warning - "shots fired!" - coming over police radios, and commands to either get down to stay in place.
Several people waiting to get through the Visitors Center recalled seeing a commotion, then hearing police yelling at everyone to get down.
Brad Bettinger, visiting from Cincinnati with his wife, Kelly, and their three sons, ages 4 to 10, said his mind immediately went to recent school shootings.
They ducked behind a pillar and were directed into a theater, where they hid under chairs.
"It was probably the scariest moment of my life," Kelly Bettinger said.
The Sylvester and Whitlock families - four parents and four children waiting to begin a Capitol tour - were suddenly ordered to get on their stomachs. They were probably like that for 15 or 20 minutes, said James Whitlock of Mason, Ohio.
"It seemed longer," he said.
Police said little, but news traveled quickly through phones. Paul Vetter, of Wall, N.J., watched Fox News on his phone.
Sitting on the floor of the Capitol rotunda, where he and his family were told to wait, it was calm, quiet, and, as he looked around, "surreal."
When all was clear, the Schmittenbergs found a nearby restaurant where they could get a drink and watch the news on TV. Their daughter, Mia, responded to friends on Snapchat and Instagram. She was OK, she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
@JonathanTamari