Panic at D.C. Union Station after man fatally shot
WASHINGTON -- A man stabbed a woman and then was shot by a security guard at Washington's Union Station on Friday, sending people fleeing outside as trains were briefly stopped and officers converged on the massive transit hub. The man died later Friday, police said.
According to police, the shooting occurred in a vestibule that connects Union Station with the adjacent offices of the Securities and Exchange Commission. A contract SEC security guard intervened when a man stabbed a woman, in what police describe as a domestic assault.
The woman's condition was not known late Friday.
The guard fired a single shot from his revolver.
CBS affiliate WUSA reported that the man and the woman who was stabbed were both found conscious and breathing, according to police.
CBS Washington D.C. reported that police said the shooting occurred near the McDonald's on the main level of the station.
Union Station -- home to Amtrak's headquarters -- is bigger than the nearby U.S. Capitol, and 90,000 people pass through it each day. Flags on the towering poles outside the station's main entrance were flying at half-staff Friday in remembrance of 9/11.
"I saw people running, and I just started running. It sounded like it was right next to me," said Ursula Lauriston, a 28-year-old magazine editor who was ordering lunch at Jamba Juice. "... People were completely confused as to what was going on, and no one knew whether to run or hide."
"I thought it was a terror act just because Union Station would be a prime location for something like that," Lauriston added.
All train service was temporarily suspended, but the station was open again minutes after the incident.