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Shots fired at Pentagon, investigation is ongoing
Pentagon police officers said they heard at least five shots fired around 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Officials in subsequent hours of the day discovered two bullet fragments embedded in the building’s bulletproof windows at the south end of the Pentagon, where renovation has been ongoing.
“We are looking at all the possibilities,” Pentagon spokesperson Steven E. Calvery said according to CNN.
No one is reported to have been harmed in what is being called an “isolated incident” by Calvery. The rooms behind the targeted windows were unoccupied at the time of the shooting, and while the bullets shattered, they failed to reach beyond the protective glass.
The shots elicited a shutdown and search of the entire Pentagon, as well as the interstate adjacent to the building. Several law enforcement agencies are monitoring surveillance footage as well as conducting ballistics tests to decipher who may have fired the bullets and with which type of gun – two things authorities say they’re unaware of at the moment.
The occurrence comes two days after early morning bullets were fired through windows of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, approximately 30 miles down the road from the Pentagon. Officials are still looking for suspects in that case as well, which also left no one harmed.
When asked if there were any ties between that and the Pentagon shootings, a law enforcement official, according to CNN, said, “except for the similarity in the incidents — windows shot out at military facilities — there is nothing to connect these incidents at this point.”
The last shootings at the Pentagon occurred seven months ago when John Patrick Bedell shot and injured two Pentagon police officers before taking return fire to the head, ending his life. The confrontation was followed by an increase in security measures at the Pentagon.
As for the shootings that occurred Tuesday morning, the investigation continues.
Photo by Master Sgt. Ken Hammond, U.S. Air Force.
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