The US Capitol Police dispatched officers to canvass Senate office buildings in response to what the department described as “a concerning 911 call” that later turned out to be a false alarm.
On Wednesday afternoon, US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said that the Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) received a call at 2.30pm saying that there was an active shooter in the Hart office building in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC.
After 4pm on Wednesday, the Capitol Police said in a statement that they had “cleared the internal security threat in the Senate Office Buildings”.
Earlier, US Capitol Police said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that anyone in one of the Senate office buildings “should be sheltering in place” because the 911 call reported “a possible active shooter,” though the department further advised that they did not have any confirmed reports of gunfire in the Senate buildings.
“This all started with one call,” Chief Manger told the press later in the day, adding that 200 officers went floor to floor in all the Senate office buildings.
“We responded in seconds … we have been training for active shooters for the last couple of years,” the chief said, according to Politico.
“I think at this point we can say that we found no confirmation that there was an active shooter, and this may have been a bogus call,” he added.
“So far… we’ve found nothing concerning. We’ve got nobody that has actually heard shots and certainly no victims,” the chief said, according to Axios.
Chief Manger said there are no plans to put up a fence around the Capitol ahead of former President Donald Trump’s arraignment in Washington DC on Thursday after he was indicted on four charges in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Those who had been evacuated from the Russell building were seen on Wednesday afternoon being escorted back in by Capitol Police.
The Senate is in recess, meaning that very few, if any, senators were working from their DC officers at the time of the incident. But thousands of staff members were working in the building at the time.
Capitol Police and the Sergeants-at-Arms said at an oversight hearing last week that they have been conducting active shooter drills both in and around the buildings at the Capitol complex during the last few months, Politico noted.
Chief Manger said that his force is “prepared for whatever” ahead of Mr Trump’s arraignment not far from the Capitol. He noted that they working with a number of agencies, including the Secret Service, the Park Police, and MPD.
