Four people were killed and around a dozen injured on Monday morning after a gunman entered the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters in Washington and opened fire at random.
The Navy yard shooter entered the facility before 8 am and, according to a tweet from the Navy’s official Twitter account, was still at large for at least half an hour.
At the time of the incident, Vincent Gray, District of Columbia Mayor, took to his own Twitter account warning local residents to “stay clear of the Washington Navy Yard.”
ABC News reports that a military police officer was shot in the legs and that the Navy yard shooter had multiple weapons at the time of the shooting.
The building where the shooting occurred has 3,000 workers, all of whom were evacuated on an emergency basis and kept in a shelter set up by the police.
The Denver Post reports that a logistics manager was in the building at the time. Patricia Ward was in the cafeteria and heard the shots. Ward said they sounded like “pop, pop, pop” and that “everybody just panicked at first. It was just people running, running, running.”
As well as the four reported fatalities, at least eight people received injuries ranging from mild to severe. President Obama was briefed this morning about the situation and the White House will, no doubt, make a statement later.
