By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON May 26, 2006 (AP)— Police investigated reports of gunfire in a House office building on Friday and briefly sealed off the Capitol as a precaution.
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.
There was no confirmation of gunfire. The FBI and D.C. Fire Department said there have been no injuries reported.
Capitol police scheduled a noon EDT briefing.
The Senate was in session at the time, but the House was not as most lawmakers had left for the Memorial Day recess. Four ambulances were on standby outside Rayburn as police methodically searched the office building. Police lined the street between the Capitol and the Rayburn building, rifles prominently displayed.
Dozens of police officers, many of them armed with assault rifles, milled around ouside the entrance to the garage.
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.
The Rayburn House Office Building was completed in early 1965 and is the third of three office buildings constructed for the U.S. House of Representatives. It sits southwest of the Capitol. The building has four stories above ground, two basements and three levels of underground garage space.
Steven Broderick, press spokesperson for Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., was in his car in the Rayburn garage Friday morning getting ready to drive his boss to the airport, when he was ordered by a Capitol Police officer to park the car and put his hands on the steering wheel. The officer then told him to run toward an exit where other officers where gathered.
"He just told me to run and don't look back," Broderick said.
The 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.
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