Capitol dome building itself. The shooter apparently entered on the senate side of things, and apparently pulled a weapon, and was himself or herself we dont know the gender of the shooter shift by Law Enforcement shot by Law Enforcement. We heard the individual has been transported to a hospital. Originally we had reports from a number of sources, including Law Enforcement, indicating that one Capitol Hill Police officer, one Capitol Police officer had also been injured in this incident. Now were being told by our capitol hill producer, chad pergram, who knows the hill better than anyone else here, that there is no officer down. We have heard from some eye witnesses that the incident occurred near the end of a given tour of School Children. This is a woman whose child was in one of these tours. Her husband was actually with the kid during the tour, and the husband was texting her from inside the Capitol Visitor Center saying, in essence, it sound like, quote, full clip of a gun had been emptied. And that perhaps there would be more injuries than we have been led to believe. So as we say, charles, this is still up folding. A unfolding, a lot of information to surface, and depending on what the information turns out to be about the motivations of the individual, the background of the individual, it could have even further repercussions, certainly politically, than beyond the scene of the crime here today. James, you mentioned the end of a tour. Obviously a lot of kids are out, a lot of school vacations. The shooter was was the shooter entering or exiting . Sounds like they were trying to enter the center. Reporter our understanding is it happened near the entrance, near the screening center, for the Capitol Visitor Center on the senate. The north side of the complex. We should point out that the lockdown that was swiftly imposed, just around think p. M. Eastern time, by the Capitol Police, has largely been lift evidence with the house, the senate, and the library of congress buildings now open for routine business. The u. S. Capitol building itself, as is typically the case during recess, as were in now, is is open for official business only. The u. S. Capitol Visitor Center, the scene of the crime irving is now closed until further notice. Thank you very much. Going to former secret Service Agent on the telephone. Dan, youre very familiar with the Capitol Visitor Center. Can you walk us through help us visualize and understand exactly how this whole thing may have played out. Sounds lying when you go in entrance, it takes a while before visitors actually encounter any sort of metal detectors. So someone can get deep understand the center, it appears, with a weapon, and we could get the sort of situation were experience right now . Right. And thats the indicate cal takeway critical takeaway and something we have been sounding the alarm about. The difference between Access Control systems and security. Access control is what you just said. You walk up as a threat, potentially with a firearm or explosive. You stop at magnetometer. The meant the threat is detect. The problem is youre suicidal you can detonate dan, hold that thought. We have an eye witness speaking right now. Like maybe theres somebody prowling around, and we dont want to be out in the open. Absolutely. You ended up in the Senators Office with a Conference Room of people watching the news develop . She works our son works for [inaudible] cell phone they would come and open up the door. And so then we gone into the Conference Room. With all her staff, including huh were all sitting there watching the tv. So, a real moment to be watching that unfold while youre hearing the lockdown and youre trapped in this room . Very weird, very strange, yes. Were glad youve made it out okay. I dont remember much of my tour here, but this is a tour i wont forget. It will be a memorable tour for everyone there. Dan, im not sure if you were able to hear, the eye witness. Again, reiterating this happened on the senate side and the found himself in senator mccluskeys office, which was an interesting situation weapon talked about this sort of what you call Access Control, and the idea that someone could get deep inside the Visitor Center, armed with a weapon, making these sort of encounters that much more dangerous. Right. When you think bit, charles, just to simplify it with an analogy. The tickets to a redskins game are an Access Control device you. Have a ticket and youre allowed in but theyre not security sonics although its very secure up at the capitol, they do a great job, this molt me monday morning quarterbacking. Ing this shows the importance of a comprehensives ofsive security plan for the country that involves preattack intelligence, that novels external surveillance and countersurveillance youch cant just have the secure environment created at the Access Controlled point because things like this can happen. You can walk up to and it open fire and then potentially allow a second wave of attackers to come in you have to have surveillance, active surveillance on the outside, look for behavioral indicators, sweating, excessive clothing, and have to have countersurveillance looking for people. Dan, obviously in the aftermath of what happened in brussels, the attacks on soft targets this subway station and the area of the airport where before you go in and you get checked out by the agents, this question of soft targets resonates cloud and clear. However, every hard target eventually will have a perimeter that becomes a soft target, where do we busch these things out that it wont be an attractive target. You need to push it out far enough too buy you time when glory Law Enforcement and youre in a terrorist response situation or an active shooter response situation, time is your friend and its it can be their enemy. You need time to respond. So the airports have got this system down. Notice how hey theyve that magnetometers pushed far much away from the actual away entrance so if you were to defeat the magna tommermer to magnetometers i have you. One question i have to ask you. One witness said it sounded like a full clip went off. Someone a full clip went off, god, was really we were lucky, lets face it no injuries. But how could that happen as someone at the actual magnetometer that youre talking about, pulls out a weapon and gets off an entire round, an entire clip of rounds. Well, charles, i can tell you from a provisioner canada and the secret Service Academy to discharge a magazine full of 15 rounds and take a gun out of holster can take seconds. Sounds crazy but i assure you with just bit of training happens in a snap. Justlike that. Not difficult. Thank you very much. I want to alert the audience that the Capitol Hill Police are planning a 415 press conference and well bring that to you live. Right now i want to go to Catherine Herridge in washington, dc with the latest. Reporter just to take people through in case theyre checking in, what is transpired over the last hour, just before 3 00 eastern, i received a phone call from a contact who works up on the hill, the staff, one of the committees, and they were down at the Ford Office Building. For those who know the capitol complex, the Ford Office Building is one of the furthest facilities away from the capitol itself. Probably a brisk 15minute walk, and they were coming out the the Ford Building and as they exited the building, by the Capitol Police officers approached them and said you need to get back inside and shelter in place and stay away from the doors and the windows. There was some initial confusion for the staffers because there had been some kind of drivel this morning, and typically they get a warning from the overhead that a drill is going down, but this was not the case, and the staff said to me the demeanor of the Police Officer was they had an active and serious situation. They then received a series of bulletins, which are common now, the primary way of communicating in an emergency on capitol hill there had been a shooting and a person was down at the cvc, the Capitol Visitor Center, at a final screening checkpoint, and this is one of the checkpoints, the high concentration of individuals coming into the Capitol Building itself and while for many people today is still a holiday, this is a busy period in washington catherine, i want to interrupt. We have an eye witness speaking right now. Reporter sure. Shooter never actually got inside the Visitor Center, that this actually happened kind of in the screening area. Does that work with what you observed . Must have been what i seen, seeing the people running from that, just trying to get away from it. And i think the like i said i saw a bunch of kids and they were i thought they were also get down, and they were running and the police were running, shuttling them that way and looking over their shoulder. Im glad all of you are okay. Dan has the presence of mind to shoot some video inside their so well try to get that off his phone and well get it to you just as quickly as we can. Doesnt work to try to shoot it off the phone. One eye witness said he saw people running running and sawed thought they were playing. The d. C. Staffers knew this was a serious situation. You are walking us through their experience. Reporter the incident with the alert that were coming from the Capitol Police to the staffers that the incident went down at that checkpoint or what i would call a security chokepoint with a he concentration of individuals and especially right now, even though congress is out of session, you have a lot of people visiting with the school break, and then also with the Cherry Blossoms so a lot of tourist traffic here in washington, dc. Law enforcement says they see no immediate connection to terrorism but this is a box that has to be check in terms of identifying the individual and understanding their motivation because things right now, for obvious reasons are, are being seep through the primp of prism of what happened in brussel. Im not saying theres a connection but these groups have been flooding the zone since last tuesday in umbrellases and this propaganda, i mean, the individuals who followedded they have almost an appetite for the violence, if you will. Theyre consumers of violence. So going to be important to and well probably learn more at this News Conference about the individual and their status. My experience is that especially close quarters like that and the high concentration of individuals the conditionol police are shooting to kill. Theyre not shooting to wound somebody because this is a very high risk situation. Right . So, i think well at least start to get a sense from the News Conference the kind of details that are available, but i think if you step back and you see what transpired in the last 70 minutes, one of the things you see and this is not something you would have seen immediately after 9 11 is that there is clearly a system in place. Right . The situation happened. The alerts go. People are sheltering in place. Theyre able to sort of move through and it they practice these drills, and 95 of the capitol is now back and open for business except for the section of the Visitor Center. So i think one of the things people should take away from this is that there really are systems in place now. No system is perfect, but you can see today that this is a procedure, a drill, if you will, they have really practiced, and when they have to kick into it effect, it works, and thats what we saw today. That is certainly the case. Thank you very much. We have chad pergram on the line. Chad there was some confusion initially we heard there was one Police Officer shot. Then we heard it was not necessarily severe and then shape legal. Turns out in officer was shot but it is an interesting situation where one witness heard what they thought was the sound of a full clip going on in a close vicinity. Anything else to add to that so far . Reporter what i have been told this is very fluid is that it is unknown if there was an exchange of gunfire. Ill emphasize that, an spending, meaning northwestern trait terror allegedly shot at the officers and the officers returned fire. I was told there were two u. S. Capitol Police Officers that began shooting, again, if you have somebody who goes through the magnetometers and produces a gun they can gore to shoot at them. We dont know if the perpetrator shot. We know the perpetrator was shot and wounded because he had been taken to the hospital. Also just been told that the brand new u. S. Capitol police chief will speak at 4 30 eastern time now. We were originally expect him right at mint but he just took the job last monday and replaced tim dime, who retired, and again, the Capitol Police, they do a yeomans job, as catherine said. Its a tough job up here but sometimes they come under criticism for maybe shooting too fast. That was the issue three years ago, sense the Government Shutdown when the shot an unarmed woman temperature a highspeed chase between the white house and the capitol, a woman who had a baby in the back. Unclear that who actually shot and killed her because there were secret service and u. S. Capitol police that shot and killed her but you come to the capitol complex like that and you get that far in just a few feet but you are inside one of the buildings here, and you havent gone through security yet and thats the zone over danger that gives people a lot of worry. In that case three years ago, im pretty sure theres certain protocols in police to protect the president of the United States and here we have someone who is actually inside the Capitol Visitor Center, thousands of tourists, which august lot of children because of the time of the area, you would think deadly force would be an appropriate course of action. Perhaps. Just guessing here. Theirs is the trick here. I said this on he air last hour. We have had multiple incidents including one as recently as december where a person who worked form the Senate Sergeant at arms no less, had a firearm on his person, came into the Dirksen CenterOffice Building across the street from the capitol and forgotten they had the weapon and they arrested him. There was obviously no intent there you head an aide for tom merino coming into the cannon house Office Building, had weapon you had some years ago can former senator jim webb, one of his top aides, had given him a brief case to carry into the capitol and it was jim webbs gun, the former senator from virginia, and they arrest him. So there must have been Something Different in the way this went down other than the compared to the other incidents bus frankly, sounds kind of silly but a lot of instances where somebody has come in, who works here, who had a gun in their car, had gun on their person, the gun enthusiast, goes to the range, and they forgot. As absurd as that seems but has happened. So must have been Something Different about this transaction. I should point out, those folks with people coming in with capitol hill i. D. , this person as far as we now did not have a capitol hill i. D. And might have done something to give them the worry that this person was there to kill and maim people and thats why the u. S. Capitol Police Responded also they did. Chad, what would you make tooth the d. C. Police tweet that went out saying ill was an is lated incident. Perhaps an hour after it occurred. Does that give us insight on who the shooter was, man or woman, potential terrorist or not . Seems like a quick time to make that sort of assessment. Well, it appears i can confirm this seemed to be some level of familiarity about this individual. We dont know if they had previous arrest warrants or somebody who comes around the capitol periodically. They have Intelligence Units here at the capitol who kind of keep track and know the people who come up here and those who belong and those who dont. Those who are here to who are a little mentally disturbed, they keep tropic of those folks as the you have to have cad tine of intelligence here. I was told this nearly early on when we started to piece this together there was some degree of familiarity with this subset and thats key. Maybe it was someone they maybe even the officers had interacted with and thats theed the indent in the fellow who had a car parked close to the capitol packed with explosives and detonate devices and everything else. Capitol hill police got him because he walked through the Russell Senate park with a shotgun, saying he was going over to Supreme Court because he had an appoint with the chief justice of the United States. They nabbed him. This guy got into the building and thats a little bit different. Well, i suspect with this press conference at 4 30, ho