Gunman Shot to Death Breaking Into Pentagon

A Pentagon guard today shot to death a shouting intruder who drew a handgun, demanded to discuss missiles and burst past a security station toward the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defense officials said.

The FBI identified the gunman as Dwain Wallace, 30, of Youngstown, Ohio.

The shooting occurred one floor below and directly beneath the offices of Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, who was meeting with Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Lt. Gen. Colin Powell, chief deputy to White House National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci, said Col. Marvin Braman, a Pentagon spokesman.

Braman said Weinberger, Shultz and Powell heard the shots. Pentagon officials said there was no evidence that Wallace was attempting to reach Weinberger.

Near River Entrance

William Caldwell, another Pentagon spokesman, and Susanne Murphy, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, said Wallace was shot and mortally wounded about 30 feet inside the building’s River Entrance, at the mouth of a corridor leading to the National Command Center.

The command center is a heavily secured area used by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Two shots were fired by one of the guards after Wallace bolted past the security checkpoint and failed to heed orders to halt, spokesmen said, and one of the bullets struck the man.

A spokeswoman at the National Orthopedic Hospital in nearby Arlington, Va., where Wallace was taken, said the man died less than two hours after the 8:05 a.m. incident.

“He was admitted to the hospital at 8:45 a.m. in full trauma arrest with a gunshot wound to the back,” spokeswoman Beth Ellington said.

James Mull, an FBI spokesman, said Wallace had been under psychiatric care in Youngstown earlier this year.

One defense official, who asked not to be identified, said Wallace indicated that he wanted to discuss missiles before he drew a small-caliber handgun and ran past the guards.

It marked the first shooting incident of its kind at the Pentagon in memory, although bombs have been set off in and around the building, where there were violent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in the early 1970s.