Construction Noise, Not Gunfire, Causes Closure of House Building

Police locked down the House of Representatives’ biggest office building for nearly five hours Friday while they investigated reports of gunfire in the underground parking garage.

In the end, police concluded that the sound had come from a jackhammer or some other piece of equipment being used to perform routine maintenance in an elevator shaft in the Rayburn House Office Building.

The report of gunfire originated with Rep. H. James Saxton (R-N.J.), the Associated Press quoted his press secretary as saying. Saxton heard noises and asked a member of his staff to call the Capitol Police to report gunshots, the press secretary said.

Until police sorted out the matter, some members of Congress and their staffs found themselves trapped in their offices, forbidden to leave.

Those who were out of their offices when the gunfire was reported were not allowed to return.

Capitol Police sent an e-mail to all House offices ordering everyone in the Rayburn building to “quickly move into the nearest interior office space or interior hallway and away from windows.”

In a later e-mail, police said they would search the gigantic building office by office.

“During the search,” police said, “the police officers will knock three times on each office door, announce ‘United States Capitol Police,’ knock three additional times and then voice the code word ‘baseball.’ Open your office doors for the police, and cooperate with all police instructions.”

The House was not in session Friday, but the Intelligence Committee was holding a hearing in the Rayburn building at the time of the lockdown. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the chairman, interrupted a witness to announce that people in the room should not try to leave.

Outside the building, hazardous materials trucks and canine units arrived, with sirens announcing the deployment of further reinforcements.

Reporters who had followed police to the underground parking garage were escorted out of the building and asked by police whether they had noticed any strange smells or seen anyone running.

Putting police on edge was the memory of a former mental patient who got into the Capitol with a gun in 1998 and shot and killed two officers. The intruder was shot and wounded by one of the officers.

During Friday’s lockdown, an aide to Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) suffered distress and was taken out of the building on a stretcher, treated at a nearby hospital and released.

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Times staff writers Nicole Gaouette and Richard Simon contributed to this report.