Authorities confirmed that there was no evidence of a shooting, shooter or injured personnel at the Washington Navy Yard on Thursday, several hours after an employee at the military base near the US capitol reported possible gunshots.
The report to local police triggered a lockdown on the base, the site of a 2013 mass shooting, while the authorities investigated the reports of an active shooter.
Navy Vice-Admiral Dixon Smith said at an 11am press conference that the military facility will remain on lockdown until the full inspection of the building was complete. Assuming nothing is found, the Navy Yard will be reopened immediately after, he said.
A female employee reported to emergency services at 7.29am that “she may have heard gunshots” from her office in building 197, Washington Metropolitan police chief Cathy Lanier said. Building 197 was the site of the 2013 shooting and was closed for renovations for months afterward.
After police interviewed the person who placed the 911 call, Lanier said there was no reason to believe the call was a hoax.
“She did what we ask the public to do,” the Lanier said. “We don’t believe it was malicious.” Lanier declined to give further details to media about the caller.
#BREAKING: #USNavy confirms no sign of shooting @NavalDistWash #NavyYard. All personnel ok. Follow-on NCIS investigation ongoing.
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) July 2, 2015
TV news footage showed a massive police response, with streets blocked off with police tape and lines of emergency vehicles. More than eight blocks of nearby roads were shut down as authorities responded to the scene, the metropolitan police department told Reuters.
Lanier said that units from the US Park Police, Metropolitan Transit Police, NCIS, US Marshals, ATF and Capitol police all responded to the call.
Lanier said the heightened threat level in the US capital had no bearing on the heavy police response to the Navy Yard threat.
“Our posture remains extremely high for all special events,” Lanier said, before reiterating that the local police takes every incident seriously.
Police vehicles as far as the eye can see at Navy Yard with an active shooter reported. pic.twitter.com/82LiAoJmEf
— Nathan Bomey (@NathanBomey) July 2, 2015
Lt Cmdr Scott Williams, a guided missile engineer, told Reuters that police came to his office and escorted him and colleagues out. He said he heard screaming in his building, No 197, the same building where a 2013 shooting took place.
But Williams told CNN outside the Navy Yard that he thought the response from the emergency services was well coordinated. “You can definitely tell that things have changed” since the last shooting, he said.
The military base, the country’s oldest naval installation, was the site of a 2013 shooting in which lone gunman Aaron Alexis killed 12 civilian staff.
That shooting triggered a review by the Pentagon, which concluded that threats to Department of Defense personnel were increasingly coming from trusted insiders and the Pentagon needed to beef up security from within.
Police chief Lanier said her department was pleased that the incident turned out to be just a practice run, “to see how to improve ... all things we tried to correct from last time. It was a smooth, coordinated reponse.”
Mayor Muriel Bowser echoed her praise of the response, saying she was “very proud of all officials who answered call.”
There have been a lot of lessons learned from previous incidents, including the 2013 shooting, she said.
The lockdown came amid heightened security concerns ahead of the US Independence Day holiday weekend. The Navy yard is located one mile south of the US Capitol and three miles from the White House.
Bowser said that the police chief will convene an “after-action meeting” to see how all units responded.
