Pentagon Shooting Suspect Dies of Injuries

(CBS/AP)  Last updated at 12:37 a.m. EST

A gunman coolly drew a weapon from his pocket and opened fire at the teeming subway entrance to the Pentagon complex Thursday evening, wounding two police officers before being shot and fatally wounded, officials said.

Pentagon police officers told CBS News correspondent David Martin that two Pentagon police officers were wounded before the shooter was himself shot - once in the head and once in the shoulder.

The medical examiner's office said hours later that the suspect, identifed by law enforcement officials as John Patrick Bedell, 36, had died of his injuries.

Officials said the two police officers' injuries were not serious.

Police say he walked up to a security checkpoint at the Pentagon in an apparent attempt to get inside the massively fortified Defense Department headquarters, at about 6:40 p.m. "He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting," said Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police. "He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face." The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons.

The assault at the very threshold of the Pentagon - the U.S. capital's ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001 - came four months after a deadly attack on the Army's Fort Hood, Texas, post allegedly by a U.S. Army psychiatrist with radical Islamic leanings. In the immediate aftermath Thursday, investigators did not think terrorism was involved but were not ruling that out and did not discuss possible motives.

President Obama was "closely following the case" and getting updates from the FBI through his homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

Police said they were speaking with a second man, who might have accompanied the shooter, and were running his name through databases.

The subway station is immediately adjacent to the Pentagon building, a five-sided northern Virginia colossus across the Potomac River from Washington. Since a redesign following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, riders can no longer disembark directly into the building. Riders take a long escalator ride to the surface from the underground station, then pass through a security check outside the doors of the building, where further security awaits.

After the attack, all Pentagon entrances were secured, then all were reopened except one from the subway, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He said the subway entrance was likely to remain closed overnight at least.

Keevill said the gunman gave no clue to the officers at the checkpoint about what he was going to do.

"There was no distress," he said. "When he reached into his pocket, they assumed he was going to get a pass and he came up with a gun."

"He wasn't pretending to be anyone. He was wearing a coat and walked up and just started shooting."

Keevill added: "We have layers of security and it worked. He never got inside the building to hurt anyone."

A Pentagon official working late in the building said people inside first heard of the shooting on television. They were later told the building was locked down and to stay in place.

Then at around 7:30 p.m. local time, they heard an announcement on the public address system that they could leave through Corridor 3 - one widely used to get access to one of the parking lots.

"We really don't know anything, just that we can leave now through that corridor," one official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak about the incident.

[winchester70]

I love a happy ending.

[ajvw]

"Pentagon Shooting Suspect Dies of Injuries"

guy dies in a shoot-out and cBS calls him a suspect. what cBS

[winchester70]

AlamoDoc: PRE-64. At one time I owned 40 in 18 different calibers.

[Fatesrider]

This shooting brought to you by the Second Amendment. Thank God we have the right to keep and bear arms. Otherwise this guy would have been forced to use, oh, I don't know, a knife or something.

And remember all of you gun enthusiasts... The only difference between this guy and you is that he chose to use his gun illegally. He wasn't a criminal (at least as far as the story says) BEFORE he started busting caps at Pentagon cops.

Yet another shooting because we all have the right to keep and bear arms. Well, since only the perp died, I guess this chalks up the 2000 people wounded by legally obtained guns (again, an assumption, but a safe one) every year for every one killed by a gun in the 'line of duty'.

[spaceatoms]

Its out of control out there, I don't ever remember all of the current problems with people teeing off(no pun intended) on society. The system has been out of control since the dot.com issues and control and force of Wall Street on the general public of the early ninties. It was almost cleaned up last year until Bush passed the stupid bailout and President Obama went along for the ride breaking his CHANGE promise. The promise of CHANGE was to have all of the big corporate Wall STreet cheaters go under, thats the change I was looking for, but no gas is up again and Washington is looking at the GDP for answers.

[erb0087]

Hoplophobe:

n. Anyone who detests Hoplong Cassidy movies.

[erb0087]

"Another GOP teabagger nutcase with a gun."

But since he attacked the Pentagon, he might also have been a disciple of Bill Ayers.

Most likely just a nutcase, somebody who thought a lone gunman like himself could shoot his way into the Pentagon.

Just because Rambo is that powerful in the movies, doesn't mean it works it real life.

[jumkey]

Right, because there are so many liberal gun nuts out there.

He's a right wing extremist like they all are, convinced by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh of Sarah Palin that the reason they're stupid and fat and unsuccessful is because the gays or the blacks or the liberals are "keeping them down".

In short, he is most certainly another whiny, selfish, entitlement loving white conservative who blames all of his personal failures on others.

Guaranteed.

[erb0087]

by AlamoDoc March 4, 2010 10:53 PM EST
Perhaps you're right. It would be nice if all parents did their God-given jobs, so we wouldn't have to live in nanny-states that decide who can carry a gun , smoke, get fat, etc.
====================================================

Even Constitutional rights are regulated.

An 8-year-old cannot walk into a gun shop and purchase a semi-automatic firearm, even if he or she has never been in trouble with the law and gets straight A's in school.

The person's lack of maturity bars gun ownership, even though the Constitution doesn't give any age requirement for keeping and bearing arms.

[AlamoDoc]

It's too bad that the lack of sanity doesn't apparently bar gun ownership. Most of these criminals are just outright insane.

[tfcrow]

Another GOP teabagger nutcase with a gun.

[erb0087]

Nobody in their right mind is seriously suggesting that children, people under the age of 18, even the best raised of whom, by definition, lack maturity, emotional maturity and judgment that comes with age, should be walking around in society locked and loaded.

[erb0087]

Nobody in their right mind is seriously suggesting that children, people under the age of 18, even the best raised of whom, by definition, lack maturity, emotional maturity and judgment that comes with age, should be walking around in society locked and loaded.
================================================

Anymore than they should be driving cars, getting married or moonlighting as Flight Controllers.

[AlamoDoc]

Actually, children in most Asian countries are more emotionally mature by the time they reach age 12 than most Americans are at age 30. Don't believe it? Visit an Asian country someday, or get some 1st generation Asian friends.