Gloom Shrouds a Mourning Capitol

By JAMES GERSTENZANG

July 28, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

Members of the House and Senate, their staff and their security agents set about with determination Monday to resume their business, in the midst of mourning for the two police officers mortally wounded in the shootout at the Capitol on Friday.

The Senate debated a revision of regulations governing credit unions, House members scurried through corridors trailed by paper-carrying aides, House Republican Leader Dick Armey issued a press release challenging President Clinton to cut taxes and tourists in T-shirts and shorts half-filled the House of Representatives’ visitors’ gallery.

But shrugging off the shroud of sorrow was only somewhat successful as the insular Capitol family made plans for a memorial service today honoring the two slain guards in the same Rotunda where presidents have lain in state.

Several blocks away, federal prosecutors transferred from the District of Columbia Superior Court to U.S. District Court the case of Russell Eugene Weston Jr., the man charged with barging past a visitors’ metal detector and shooting the two officers, Jacob “J.J.” Chestnut and John Gibson, in barely a minute of mayhem that stunned the nation. A tourist was also wounded.

Magistrate Deborah Robinson ordered Weston, who was critically wounded when guards returned fire, to remain in police custody without bond. He was listed as stable and was held under guard in a locked section of the D.C. General Hospital. Robinson also appointed two public defenders to represent him, and Weston spoke briefly with an attorney, A.J. Kramer.

“He’s not in good shape [physically],” said Kramer, who nevertheless described his client as alert and talkative during a 45-minute conference. “Mentally, I don’t have any comment about his condition.”

Weston’s parents said they had given doctors permission to perform additional surgery on their 41-year-old son to repair damage from bullet wounds to an arm and leg. They said he has been taken off a ventilator.

They also said they planned to travel east later this week from their home in Valmeyer, Ill., to visit him. “I feel so bad for the families, the people that he killed,” said Russell Weston Sr. on NBC’s “Today” program. “And I apologize to them, and I apologize to the nation for the grief and the trauma that he has caused. I’m so sorry.”

On Capitol Hill, the gentle rise that looks west over the National Mall toward the White House and beyond, the terror that struck on Friday afternoon remained like a dark veil draped over much of the day’s activities.

“It’s hard to stay focused,” said an aide to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican in whose office suite the drama came to an end.

Chestnut was shot at his post, a doorway magnetometer where visitors are scanned for weapons. Moments later, Gibson and Weston encountered each other, apparently exchanging gunfire just inside the private entrance to DeLay’s suite.

On Monday, DeLay’s large doorway was draped in black bunting. So too was the doorway to the headquarters of the U.S. Capitol Police, in an office building several blocks from the Capitol.

On the broad, sun-drenched steps where on other days members of the House and Senate pose for photographs with constituents with the Capitol dome as a backdrop, more than 100 bouquets lay wilting in the summer heat.

At midafternoon a motorcade of police cars arrived, and two dozen members of the Capitol Police stepped uneasily to the base of the steps. At the command, “Atten-TION,” some saluted uncertainly, then others did. Finally, ordered about-face, some turned to the right, others to the left, and they walked back to their cars.

Amid the tributes to Chestnut, 58, and Gibson, 42, there was renewed talk about the vulnerability of the Capitol and those who work there.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) revived talk about building a subterranean welcome center where visitors to the Capitol could be screened for weapons.

It would be built beneath a plaza at some distance from the Capitol, minimizing potential risks to those working in the House, Senate and the warren of corridors connecting the two, if not to the officers conducting the screening. A similar above-ground, but separate, security checkpoint was built adjacent to the White House several years ago.

The shooting has put the 1,200-member police force--never before the subject of speech after speech in the House and Senate--in an unaccustomed spotlight.

For years, it was denigrated as a mostly patronage-supplied force of retired military veterans, large of girth, who stood in clusters near doorways, offering directions to tourists and a cheery hello to members of the House and Senate. But more recently, it has made efforts to improve its professionalism.

Still, among its most important chores has always been ready recognition of the 435 members of the House and the 100 senators. Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reported a year ago that one officer was disciplined because she enraged Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield) when, failing to recognize him, she demanded he offer identification.

And during the House salutes and vows of support--Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio) used the new focus on the police force to remind his colleagues that he had sought a pay raise for its members last year--members acknowledged the special role the security unit plays.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said that at the moment the gunman burst in, Chestnut was helping one group of tourists while his partner at the post was a short distance away, obtaining a wheelchair for another visitor.

Twice DeLay rose on the House floor to pay tribute to the officers, first in an abbreviated opening session and then in the late afternoon as the House granted formal approval of a resolution permitting use of the Rotunda for the memorial service.

With no more than two dozen people in the House chamber--only a few of them members of Congress--DeLay said that each night when he left the Capitol, he would say to Chestnut, using the officer’s nickname, “J.J., you be careful.”

“He was careful,” DeLay said, wiping a tear with one finger, “but, unfortunately, not enough.”

Times staff writers Richard Serrano, Edwin Chen and Marc Lacey in Washington, and Eric Slater in Valmeyer, Ill., contributed to this story.

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A Rare Honor

When the bodies of slain Capitol police officers John Gibson and Jacob “J.J.” Chestnut lie in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda today, they will join a small and distinguished list. The previous honorees:

Individual/office: Date

Henry Clay, senator: 1852

Abraham Lincoln, president: 1965

Thaddeus Stevens, congressman: 1868

Charles Sumner, senator: 1874

Henry Wilson, vice president: 1875

James Garfield, president: 1881

John Logan, senator: 1886

William McKinley, president: 1901

Pierre Charles L’Enfant, builder*: 1909

George Dewey, admiral: 1917

Unknown Soldier, World War I: 1921