WASHINGTON (AP) - Police sealed off a House office builing on Friday as they investigated reports that shots were fired in the garage of the building. Four ambulances were summoned. Capitol police were investigating "the sound of gunfire in the garage level of the Rayburn House Office Building," said an announcement on the internal Capitol voice alarm system.
The Senate was in session at the time, but the House was not.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., conducting a House Intelligence Committee hearing, interrupted a witness to request those attending the meeting to remain in the room and said the doors must be closed.
"It's a little unsettling to get a Blackberry message put in front of you that says there's gunfire in the building," he said.
There was no confirmation of gunfire.
Shortly after police sealed off the Capitol, four ambulances arrived at the garage entrance to the Rayburn House Office building and police expanded the area being sealed off.
"They said they heard gunfire in the Rayburn garage but this is a huge building, I'm guessing it's a car backfiring or balloons popping," said Gene Smith, chief of staff to Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who has an office in Rayburn.
U.S. Capitol Police Department's Containment & Emergency Response Team maintains an indoor shooting range in the basement of the Rayburn building, according to the department's Web site.
Jeff Connor, a spokesman for Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., said Capitol Hill police notified the office that gunfire was heard in the Rayburn building garage.
"They specifically said there was the sound of gunfire on one of the garage levels of the Rayburn House office building and asked staff to remain in their offices," Connor said.
While the House was adjourned for the Memorial Day weekend, at least one committee was meeting.
At the same time, Capitol police went room to room in at least parts of the Capitol advising staff to stay in their offices, according one House aide whose office was advised.
"They want us to stay in our offices and I'm perfectly happy to do that but I don't feel endangered,"
Many members of the House were back home in their districts for the Memorial Day recess. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was home in Illinois when the incident began, an aide in his office said.
Incidents of violence inside the Capitol and its office buildings are rare.
On July 24, 1998, a man with a history of mental illness shot and killed Capitol Police officer Jacob J. Chestnut at a first-floor Capitol entrance. He then charged into an adjacent suite of offices occupied by Tom DeLay, then the House Republican whip, and exchanged fire with officer John Gibson, who also was killed. The gunman was wounded and captured.
In 1983, a late-night bomb, possibly set by someone protesting U.S. military action in Grenada and Lebanon, exploded just outside the Senate chamber. No one was injured.
