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WASHINGTON (AP) - A woman with a 1-year-old girl led Secret Service and police on a harrowing car chase from the White House past the Capitol Thursday, attempting to penetrate the security barriers at both national landmarks before she was shot to death, police said. The child was unhurt.
"I'm pretty confident this was not an accident," said Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier. Still, Capitol Police said there appeared to be no terrorist link. The woman apparently was unarmed.
Tourists, congressional staff and even some senators watched as a caravan of law enforcement vehicles chased a black Infiniti with Connecticut license plates down Constitution Avenue outside the Capitol. House and Senate lawmakers, inside debating how to end a government shutdown, briefly shuttered their chambers as Capitol Police shut down the building.
The woman's car at one point had been surrounded by police cars and she managed to escape, careening around a traffic circle and past the north side of the Capitol. Video shot by a TV camerman showed police pointing firearms at her car before she rammed a Secret Service vehicle and continued driving. Lanier said police shot and killed her a block northeast of the historic building.
One Secret Service member and a 23-year veteran of the Capitol Police were injured. Officials said they are in good condition and expected to recover.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — When reports of "shots fired" started to circulate in Washington, D.C. and on social media, Utah Representative Jim Matheson said members of Congress were ordered to take cover in their offices.
"We were watching on TV, and the Internet, and trying to figure out what was going on, just like everyone else," Matheson said in a phone interview.
From Capitol Hill to the White House, lawmakers, locals and tourists didn't know what was going on, but they knew it was not a drill.
Everyone in Utah's congressional delegation had tense moments as they sheltered in place, but several of them promptly tweeted that they were all okay, and they offered prayers for the first responders and anyone who was injured.
As the chaos intensified outside, Matheson said, he heard sirens, but his office was a long way from the car chase as it unfolded outside. He said his staff, and even visitors in the hallway heard a warning on the public address system, and they went into lockdown mode.
"I was here on 9/11," said the Democratic congressman, "and we didn't have any of that. Back then, it was a guy running down the hall shouting."
Now, he said, every congressional office has a plan to shelter in place, and they regularly drill. Matheson said his sense of security at the Capitol has not been rattled by Thursday's chase, or the government shutdown.
"It's my understanding that there's been no reduction in the overall number of Capitol Police on the hill," he said.
Capitol Police were not furloughed this week, but they're not getting paid right now either. Like many government workers classified as "essential," they don't know when they'll pick up the paycheck for today's work. But, Matheson said, fewer entrances to the Capitol Office Building are open during the shutdown.
"It's important that we protect our institutions of government, and I think the Capitol Police do a fantastic job," Matheson said.
Utah's former attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, who works in D.C., ended up extremely close to the chaos. He snapped a picture of FBI agents piling out of truck right next to his car on Pennsylvania Avenue, as the chase came to and end. He could even see an overturned car from his vantage point.
"Of course, it's the Capitol, so not knowing at that point what's going on, it was pretty dramatic," he said in a phone interview.
Shurtleff had just come out of a lunch on Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled into traffic.
"All of a sudden, I saw from every direction Secret Service, FBI, police, Capitol Police, everybody chasing down Pennsylvania," he said.
He couldn't drive any further, as police swarmed the area. He turned on the radio, and pulled up twitter on his phone.
"Twitter is just about faster and better than anything," he said.
Phone lines were jammed, but as he realized the danger was subsiding, he tweeted tongue-in-cheek: "Caught in middle of the unfolding drama of shots fired on Capitol Hill in DC. And me without my concealed weapon!"
Shurtleff said he was impressed with the speed of the response, and how so many law enforcement officers seemingly came from out of nowhere.
"This appears to be an isolated, singular matter, with, at this point, no nexus to terrorism," said Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine.
Law-enforcement authorities identified the woman as Miriam Carey, 34, of Stamford, Conn. The authorities spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge the information publicly.
Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia said the FBI was executing a search warrant at a Stamford address in connection with the investigation. Police officers had cordoned off a condominium building and the surrounding neighborhood in the shoreline city.
The pursuit began when the car sped onto a driveway leading to the White House, over a set of lowered barricades. When the driver couldn't get through a second barrier, she spun the car in the opposite direction, flipping a Secret Service officer over the hood of the car as she sped away, said B.J. Campbell, a tourist from Portland, Ore.
Then the chase began.
"The car was trying to get away. But it was going over the median and over the curb," said Matthew Coursen, who was watching from a cab window when the Infiniti sped by him. "The car got boxed in and that's when I saw an officer of some kind draw his weapon and fire shots into the car."
Police shot and killed the driver just outside the Hart Senate Office Building, where many senators have their offices. Dine said an officer took the child from the car to a hospital. She was not injured and was placed in protective custody, Capitol Police said.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who said he was briefed by the Homeland Security Department, said he did not think the woman was armed. "There was no return fire," he said.
A few senators between the Capitol and their office buildings said they heard the shots.
"We heard three, four, five pops," said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. Police ordered Casey and nearby tourists to crouch behind a car for protection, then hustled everyone into the Capitol.
Others witnessed the incident, too.
"There were multiple shots fired and the air was filled with gunpowder," said Berin Szoka, whose office at a technology think tank overlooks the shooting scene.
The shooting comes two weeks after a mentally disturbed employee terrorized the Navy Yard with a shotgun, leaving 13 people dead including the gunman.
Before the disruption, lawmakers had been trying to find common ground to end a government shutdown. The House had just finished approving legislation aimed at partly lifting the government shutdown by paying National Guard and Reserve members.
Capitol Police on the plaza around the Capitol said they were working without pay as the result of the shutdown.
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Associated Press writers Adam Goldman, Mark Sherman, Philip Elliott, Jesse Holland, David Espo, Alan Fram, Eric Tucker, Brett Zongker, Donna Cassata and Henry C. Jackson in Washington, Michael Melia in Hartford, Conn., and John Christoffersen in Stamford, Conn., contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
