Two people have been injured after a shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, police have said.They said a man walked into the building with a "long gun" and then opened fire.
Security guards then fired back. A guard and the attacker were both shot in the incident, officers added.
They have been taken to George Washington hospital.
The extent of their injuries was not immediately known.
The suspect is now in custody and the museum has been evacuated.
It is not yet known if the attacker's weapon was a rifle or a shotgun.
One witness called Anya, who was in the museum lobby at the time, said: "We heard a huge boom and then a few consecutive shots after that.
"We all hit the ground and definitely knew it was gunshots. We all just ducked wherever we could."
The 21-year-old told Fox News: "I happened to be in a doorway and we all hid behind any area we could find.
"I was actually with two little girls who just started crying."
Stephanie Geraghty, 28, who had also been visiting the museum, said the attacker appeared to be a white male carrying a silver gun.
She said: "I heard the first shot, it sounded like something had been dropped from the upper stories down.
"The next two came really fast - bam bam. At that point everyone took off, chaos, running."
The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside.
All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.
The building, located just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction.
It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year. Roads surrounding the museum have been closed.
Another Islamic terror attack? Another "sudden Jihad syndrome" by a lone wolf Muslim? I will be following this latest attack on Jewry in America.
The Jihad HAS hit the streets in America, but the administration will not call it that.
The question is, will Obama ignore this as he did the shooting of a soldier last week by a pious Muslim?
Will this be brushed off as the actions of the "mentally ill" as is usually the case with Jihadi attacks?
Two men were injured in a shooting at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington today. The attack took place at a security check point just inside the museum, and early indications were that a security guard and the gunman, who wielded a shotgun, were injured. Other security officials quickly evacuated the building. The motivation for the attack is unclear. The shooting comes just days after Barack Obama visited the site of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany alongside Angela Merkel and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. A Washington fire department official said a third man had been injured by broken glass. Tourists who were inside the museum during the attack reported hearing shots and said they were swiftly hustled out of the building. “It was definitely a security guard,” a young woman told CNN about one of the victims. “He was down, bleeding on the floor.
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* Officials: At least 2 shot inside US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC
U.S. Park Police Sgt. David Schlosser said the gunman walked into the museum with what he described as a "long gun." The gunman and a security guard were shot. Both were taken to the hospital, but the extent of their injuries wasn't immediately known.
U.S. Park Police initially gave slightly different information, saying three people had been shot. Fire department spokesman Alan Etter told CNN a third person was hurt after being cut by broken glass. Several witnesses said they saw the security guard on the floor and bleeding.
The museum normally has a heavy security presence with guards positioned both inside and outside. All visitors are required to pass through metal detectors at the entrance, and bags are screened.
Schlosser said park police SWAT teams were doing a secondary sweep of the building, but they didn't believe there was another gunman.
The museum, located just off the National Mall near the Washington Monument, is a popular tourist attraction. It draws about 1.7 million visitors each year.
Roads surrounding the museum have been closed and blocked off with yellow tape. Several police cars and officers on horses surround the area.
Mark Lippert of Lasalle, Ill., said he was at the museum when he heard several loud pops and saw several schoolchildren running toward him, three with horrified looks on their faces.
Update 11:41: Okay, now that we have a shooter ID, I'm going to run down my coverage. He's a nasty nut job. Real piece of work. They get them there at the Holocaust Museum occasionally. I had to deal with one, thankfully peaceable, Holocaust denier in my brief time there.
Do be careful of the initial biographical reports from the press. It's all parroted from some unreliable open-source data, and I wouldn't believe it without independent confirmation.
Update 11:34: Fox is reporting a shooter name. I'm going to avoid the details--the press will have it all soon, no doubt. But it looks like it was a white-supremacist anti-Semite. Sick bastard.
Update 11:24: I can't overstate how secure this museum is. After 9/11, it was the only site in DC that didn't increase its security measures. It was already at post-9/11 levels.
Update 11:13: FNC reports that staffers on the fifth floor are still in place. This makes sense, because there is no easy way to get up there without a pass. However their speculation that visitors may have been evacuated to the adjacent office building is very unlikely. There's security screening there, too.
Update 11:01: More about museum security. The museum's senior security people are all very serious guys. Ex-Secret Service and Army Special Forces. Always armed, and always vigilant.
The CNN guy was interviewing a witness, and there was a man in a burgundy-blazer, the mark of a visitor services staffer, in the background. Obviously knew better than to talk to the press.
Breaking news 10:51: from Washington, D.C. Shots fired at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
I used to be on the museum's visitor services staff. Reports are that a single shooter entered the building and opened fire, hitting a security officer before being shot.
Here's what I know from personal experience:
The Holocaust Museum is a fabulously secure place. The shooter could not have gone any further than two or three steps inside the building before opening fire. There are only two entrances, and the shooter entered on the east side. There is very little space before you have to go through magnetometers and x-ray machines. There was no chance of getting a firearm through there, so the wounded security officer was almost certainly manning the security checkpoint.
I wouldn't credit any early reports on the number of shots. The building is cement and brick, with high ceilings. One witness on CNN is saying that the shots were fired from an upper floor. That is wildly implausible unless the witnesses were down on the basement level, hearing the shots from the ground floor.
There are a lot of people on the roof of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing next door. There are often people up there, but more than usual today. Snipers, no doubt.
Police are saying the gunman had a long gun. A rifle would be a sign of an ill-considered attack. A shotgun would be much more appropriate for an attack on the museum, and would more likely indicate a well-planned attack.
CNN witness is adamant that she had tickets for the museum for 1:15 specifically. Classic.
There is discussion of a "suspicious package." With a evacuation like that, there will be dozens of "suspicious packages," i.e., any unattended object, camera-sized or larger, in or near the museum.
A dark day for The Burgundy
Updating live.
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