D.C. Mayor: No Evidence of a Shooting at the Navy Yard

Law enforcement officials said the massive response to reports of shots fired at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., was just a false alarm.

At 7:29 a.m. Thursday EDT, a female employee reported hearing a sound that resembled gunfire. Law enforcement, including Washington police, the ATF, and Capitol Hill police were on the scene within 20 minutes, according to Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

“We have found no evidence of shooting or victims,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said.

The Navy Yard remains on lockdown, according to Vice Adm. Dixon Smith, head of Navy Installations Command.

“The investigation is ongoing and the scene remains active,” the Navy said in a statement.

Lanier added that it doesn’t appear as if the report of the gunshot was a genuine threat.

“We don’t believe it was a malicious hoax or anything like that,” the police chief said.

The response “went very, very smoothly,” Lanier added. She said there would be a “full deployment” of police forces in D.C. throughout the July 4 holiday weekend. The Department of Homeland Security is also on heightened alert.

The Navy reported on Twitter that all personnel are OK and said an investigation is ongoing.

The Navy Yard was the scene of a 2013 mass shooting by lone gunman Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 and injured three at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command. If nothing else, Thursday’s scare shows law enforcement is leaving nothing to chance ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, which extremist groups have targeted for U.S. attacks.

U.S. officials have raised security measures around the country over the prospect of a homegrown threat this weekend. Over the last year, authorities nationwide have arrested more than 20 people on suspected links to the Islamic State. In April, two men inspired by the Mideast-based extremist group were shot dead as they opened fire on a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in suburban Dallas. Many Muslims consider depictions of their prophet blasphemous.

American authorities are particularly concerned by an Islamic State spokesman recently urging supporters to attack the United States during the holy month of Ramadan, which ends July 17. A recent bulletin by federal agencies warns police “to remain vigilant during upcoming national holidays and military events due to the heightened threat of attacks.”

During a Defense Department news conference on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter acknowledged that threats always increase around the holidays and that threats against U.S. citizens spelled out on social media sites are of particular concern, since they can inspire so-called “lone wolf” attacks by people not formally aligned with a terrorist group. “There doesn’t have to be and won’t necessarily be a command-and-control relationship between somebody who instigates an incident and ISIL as an organization,” he said. “They are self-radicalized, self-organized people on social media.”

The SITE Intelligence Group flagged tweets by Islamic State supporters in recent days that call for just such attacks inside the United States, with one tweeter writing to a well-known Islamic State supporter, “is it that hard to gather a group of 4 and set a sportsclub or school ablaze and block of [sic] exits by setting them alight?”

Another Twitter account run by a tweeter who identifies as an Islamic State fighter tweeted that “’Fireworks’ will be amazing this year #4thjuly so wait, we are also waiting with you.”

At the Navy Yard, security forces cordoned off the compound. Police officers and other law enforcement officials wearing bulletproof vests and carrying weapons of war are now patrolling the area. Initial reports said there may have been gunshots inside one of the buildings on the large campus that is home to many naval offices. Marine barracks are also located there.

The dramatic response was for nothing, but was warranted in the wake of the 2013 killings. That attack was the second mass shooting at a U.S. military base in recent years; in 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, shot and killed 13 at Fort Hood in Texas.

Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Mladen Antonov/Getty Images