Capitol Shootout Victim Says She Saw Who Shot Her

Wounded in last week’s shootout in the Capitol, Angela Dickerson dived for the floor, but she says she saw enough in the chaos around her to identify the gunman who killed two police officers.

“Considering all that happened, I truly did come out the lucky one,” Dickerson said Thursday in her first public remarks on last week’s gunfire.

“I only wish that there were three surviving victims instead of just me,” she said. “May God bless you.”

Across the Potomac in Virginia, one of the policemen, Det. John M. Gibson, was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The other, Jacob J. Chestnut, is to be buried there today.

Dickerson, in a news conference with her lawyer and her husband, said she is recovering well from two gunshot wounds but has flashbacks of the shooting.

“I can identify some of the people” in the gunfight, Dickerson said. “I didn’t necessarily see all the people.”

Dickerson, 24, said she saw the person who shot her, but she would not identify that person for reporters. A third Capitol police officer also was firing at the gunman.

Dickerson thanked the two dead officers for saving lives.

She expressed sympathy for their families, and for the family of the suspected gunman, Russell Eugene Weston Jr. The 41-year-old drifter’s parents have spoken movingly of their remorse for the shootings and of their son’s 20-year history of mental illness.

When the shooting began, Dickerson, an interior designer from the Washington suburb of Chantilly, Va., was leaving the building with several relatives, she said.

One bullet passed through her right shoulder, and a bullet fragment hit just below her right eye, damaging the lower lid, she said.

More details of the attack emerged Thursday. In what will doubtless be a crucial piece of evidence, a security camera perched inside the Capitol door entered by the gunman captured a chilling look at the start of the deadly firefight, according to a description provided by a law enforcement source familiar with the videotape.

The tape begins by showing the attacker’s outstretched left hand, gun already drawn, before he even reaches the metal detector a few feet from the doorway. Chestnut, talking to a tourist, quickly crumples to the ground.

The assailant, face obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, goes through the metal detector, switches the gun to his right hand, pivots to his right and points the weapon as if to shoot, although no flash of light or smoke is seen.

He then takes a few steps and suddenly contorts his body, as if he had been shot or shot at. It has already been reported that at this point, another Capitol police officer, Douglas McMillan, fired at the suspect from farther inside the building.