Police: No evidence of shooting at Washington Navy Yard

Police tell members of the media to move from their positions near the Washington Navy Yard in Washington on Thursday, July 2, 2015. A lockdown was underway Thursday morning across the Washington Navy Yard campus after reports of shots fired, but a senior law enforcement official said those reports had not been confirmed.
Police tell members of the media to move from their positions near the Washington Navy Yard in Washington on Thursday, July 2, 2015. A lockdown was underway Thursday morning across the Washington Navy Yard campus after reports of shots fired, but a senior law enforcement official said those reports had not been confirmed.

WASHINGTON — Investigators found no evidence of a shooting after the Washington Navy Yard went on lockdown Thursday because someone reported shots fired in the same building where a gunman killed 12 workers in a rampage two years ago.

D.C. police said a woman called from inside a Navy Yard building to report that she might have heard sounds of gunshots about 7:20 a.m. However, investigators found no sign of a shooting, a shooter or anyone injured.

No arrests were made and no weapons found, officials said.

"At this time there is no evidence of gunshots," Mayor Muriel Bowser said. "There is no evidence of a shooter, and there is no evidence of any victims today."

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Navy security saw surveillance video of two people jumping the fence in the vicinity of the building a couple of minutes before the first report of gunfire. Security found no one inside the building, the official said.

Officials do not believe the report was a hoax, D.C. police Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters. Investigators interviewed the woman who made the call, Lanier said, and she did exactly as authorities regularly tell people: Report anything you think may be suspicious.

Read Friday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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