Police reports that gunshots were heard near Capitol Hill

chika ebuzor

March 29, 2017 9:08 PM

A police spokeswoman said the incident, which had happened between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. local time (1330-1400 GMT), appeared to be criminal, not a terrorist act.

Police reports that gunshots were heard near Capitol Hill

Gunshots were heard near the U.S. Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning after a person tried to ram a police cruiser, Capitol police said.

The driver then leaped from the car and escaped on foot before being taken into police custody.

The spokesperson said that no one was struck by the bullets.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shots.

One picture spread on Twitter shows police officers hunched over something on the ground with more police rushing to join them.

Twitter user Scott Ferson said: “Cops ran to base of hill. Sounded like three shots fired.”

The Capitol Hill and nearby U.S. Botanic Garden have been on lockdown following the incident.

NAN reports that authorities temporarily closed roads Tuesday near the White House after the discovery of a “suspicious package” outside the grounds of the presidential residence.

The U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president, his family and other top officials and visiting dignitaries, said that officers had established a perimeter, and moved pedestrians outside the White House a safe distance away, as a precaution.

The package appeared to have been found on the north side of the grounds, with some television crews moved off the White House north lawn.

NAN also recalls that on March 11, Jonathan Tran, 26, scaled an outer-perimeter fence on the White House complex on Friday night.

Tran climbed a White House fence on Friday night and gained access to the complex’s south grounds before being arrested by the Secret Service.

The service said the incident occurred at about 11:38 p.m.

The intruder was carrying a backpack and purportedly got close to the White House’s south portico residence entrance, near the Washington Monument.

No hazardous material was found inside the backpack, and a subsequent search of the complex grounds resulted in “nothing of concern to security operations,” the Secret Service said.

The agency also said that the suspect had no “previous history” with the agency.

Tran, who reportedly had a California driver’s license, told Secret Service officers that he was at the White House to see Trump.

chika ebuzor