VP Biden called that Park Ranger who was berated by GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) and forced to apologize for the government shutdown.
We still don’t know really anything about what led Miriam Carey on that string of actions that led to her death yesterday afternoon near the US Capitol. Given an apparent history of mental illness, some sort of severe psychiatric disturbance seems the most plausible scenario. (Carey’s mother says her daughter was suffering from post-partum depression. NBC this morning reports that Carey had begun to suspect she was under government surveillance and that President Obama was stalking her.) But I wanted to address a number of questions we’ve gotten via email and twitter why the police had to use deadly force since she was apparently unarmed.
Here’s first full account of just what happened this afternoon at the White House and Capitol Hill.
We’re still in that early period when we should treat all reports as tentative. But we’re getting the first outlines of what appears to have happened. We have multiple major news organization reports that the incident began when a women tried to ram the White House gates. That led to a car chase to the Capitol, with the Secret Service in pursuit, which ended with the woman being killed, presumably in the gunfire that started the lockdown at Capitol Hill.
TPM has not been able to independently confirm what appears to be the White House part of the story.
3:34 pm – conflicting reports on the suspect’s condition.
NBC news just reported that the incident began at the White House, apparently with an attempted breach of the security perimeter. We have no independent confirmation of this new detail.
TPM has made contact with a number of House leadership aides on both sides of the aisle. All under lockdown but all report they’re safe/fine.
DC police say they have no information on shooting incident.
FBI says they’re responding to the scene of reported shooting.
Capitol Police rushed tourists out of the building.