actually happened today, but the capitol police, the d.c. metro police know how to operate in these types of scenarios. we ve had situations like this multiple times in my years of covering capitol hill and i will say this, i ran into a capitol police officer and just asked what the deal was and he just nodded at me and said everything is under control. he said we are not trained to fire warning shots. i know people talked about this over the course of the last 20 or 30 minutes. i don t know any more of the back story there, but capitol police and d.c. metro police, that s not in their realm of doing things right now. so if shots were fired as we ve been reporting and reports were fired it was not in a warning shot capacity, but i will say as the capitol is concerned and right now things appear to be moving back to business. tourists are moving through here and right now at least according to the capitol police officer i
spoke to here everything is under control guys. it s an important point. just to clarify for viewers, if you are just joining us, these were reports from the metropolitan police spokesperson to cnn after the car rammed into a police cruiser that the capitol police fired warning shots and that is not the case according to the capitol police officer, just telling you, phil mattingly, we do not fire warning shots. that is not what we re trained to do. manu was telling us he was seeing tourists and this is the height of tourist season and everything is normal. behind you, phil mattingly, same deal. tourists still coming in and going out. exactly right. as you know, this is a height of tourist groups and a lot of students from around the country are coming through and i asked them, and i said do you know what s going on around the capitol? no one has a clue.
street with people walking from the capitol, but no appearance of any kind of panic or anything like that right now, guys. tom fuentes, if you re still with us, again, the capitol police the alert they sent out is that there s been activity in washington and independence. they have said all staff should steer clear of the area until further notice. what would initial sort of bigger tom, fuentes, if you re there. we do, hi, tom, you re on the air right now. i want to ask you about the big picture response, the capitol police and the house seargent at arms are aware and monitoring and the meag the message to sta be to steer clear. what is the message now if they apprehended the individual what is next in terms of how the authorities respond? the response now, poppy, is they want to keep everyone that works at the capitol and nearby
why did this driver ram into a police cruiser? was this a deranged individual? was this something more planned out? those are still outstanding questions, but manu raju very importantly reporting from inside the capitol and where we saw people and members of congress and aides walking back and forth going about their day and they have not been put in a shelter in place warning and remember what happened in the british parliament when there was the vehicle attack on the westminster bridge they were in lockdown for members of parliament and that is not happening here and art roderick, if you re with us here someone tried to run over capitol hill police officers in a vehicle. obviously, there is so much concern rid now over that type of incident and vehicles being used as weapons. how hard is it to protect against that? it s very difficult especially if the individual is willing to die for whatever cause they re fighting for. in this particular case we don t know the motivation yet. was
shelter in place. none of that is happening at the moment that the capitol police moves to secure the area outside the building and of course, taking this very seriously given how close this is to the action that s happening on capitol hill today, guys. i want to reiterate that point because you ve been in the capitol covering things when it has gone through lockdown and it is something that happens from time to time, so if it is not happening now, it does indicate that there s not some greater concern for the spreading indoors. would that be your take, manu? that s right. remember last year when the gunshot actually occurred in the capitol visitors center complex around the security area, at that point there was a lockdown. folks were told to shelter in place. people were not allowed to leave their offices. that s want happening right now. there s no threat within the building and within the complex. this appears to perhaps be arne