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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
A female motorist with a child in her car, who led security on a high-speed chase from the White House area to the Capitol Hill, the seat of the Congress, was shot at by the police and pronounced dead.
Two police officials, including one from the Secret Service were also injured in the process.
"The suspect in the vehicle, we do know, was struck by gunfire...the suspect has been pronounced (dead)," Washington DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, told reporters. She confirmed that a one-year-old baby was taken from the car and is now in good condition.
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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
Officials said it appears that there was no nexus to terrorism, while another official described this as an isolated incident.
Earlier the Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine said it was about 2.18 pm local time that the women in the vehicle in the vicinity of the White House apparently attempted to pass a barricade.
Media reports said a child was in a black car with the female suspect, who tried to drive through the barricade that blocks the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicles. The driver then proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill, where shots were fired after a high-speed police chase.
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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
Secret Service uniformed division attempted to stop her bid and shots were potentially fired, she said. The Secret Service pursued the vehicle. Later, it struck one of the police vehicles near the Capitol Hill, where it crashed into one of the barricades, police said.
Soon thereafter the Capitol Hill was locked down, which was soon lifted.
The incident sparked a massive security response in the region, emergency vehicles converged on to the scene and security was heightened inside the Capitol, which was already tense during shutdown negotiations.
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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
Later in evening on Thursday, the Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told reporters that no shots were fired at the White House and that the car crashed at the checkpoints only at the outer perimeter of the White House.
The incident is under investigation, he said.
After the female driver crashed her car, one of the law enforcement official initially rescued the child and took the child to an initial medical care in the vicinity. Lanier and other police officials refused to give information about the suspect.
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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
"We are not going to answer any questions about the suspect at this point. All the information that we're giving you is preliminary," she said.
"As of right now, we do know that there were shots fired in at least two locations during this pursuit," she said adding that the pursuit went several blocks, involved both the United States Secret Service and United States Capitol police.
"Right now it is all very preliminary. We don't know which officers fired, how many rounds were fired. I will say that both at the White House and at the Capitol, the security perimeters worked. They did exactly what they were supposed to do and they stopped a suspect from breaching the security perimeters, in a vehicle at both locations," Lanier said.
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Dramatic car chase from White House to Capitol, driver killed
Lanier said the incident does not appear to be in any way an accident.
"All the information that we have right now is this does not appear to be in any way an accident. This was a lengthy pursuit. There were multiple vehicles that were rammed. There were officers that were struck and security perimeters that were attempted to be breached. So it does not appear in any way this was an accident," she said.
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