Posted on 09/16/2011 12:27:31 PM PDT by Tarantulas
Thank You for the update.
Presser due shortly. I heard it mentioned during the newsbreak on my radio. Not sure when exactly.
Search completed ... no weapon or gunman found.
Perhaps if the military was allowed to act like military, they would grow ‘nads again.
They have been relegated to a unit of Barney Fife types.
Updated: ‘No gunman found,’ D-M colonel says
Dylan Smith & Ryan Kelly & Janet Rose Jackman
TucsonSentinel.com
The commander of Davis-Monthan Air Force base said “no gunman or weapon was found” after the Tucson air base spent a day locked down following reports of an armed man Friday.
“No gunman or weapon was found,” said Col. John Cherrey, 355th Fighter Wing commander, in a live statement to the press Friday evening. Cherrey did not take questions.
Just before 5 p.m., TPD spokeswoman Maria Hawke said the SWAT team, hostage negotiators and bomb squad had cleared the scene.
Personnel performed a “floor by floor, room-by-room search” of the former civil engineering squadron building where the reported gunman was believed to be and found nothing, Cherrey said.
While Tucson Police and Fire Department radio traffic just before noon referred to a shooting on the base, and a possible gunshot victim, Air Force officials maintained throughout the day that no shots had been fired.
The Air Force base went into lockdown “following a reported sighting of an armed individual in and around one of our office buildings,” Cherrey said.
The base was locked down from about 10:30 a.m. until about 4 p.m., Cherrey said.
Just before 2 p.m., Tucson police shut down Golf Links Road, between Craycroft and Swan roads. At least one ambulance, a Pima County Regional SWAT truck and eight to 10 other police vehicles then entered the base at the Swan Road gate.
Golf Links Road in front of the base was reopened around 4:30 p.m.
SWAT personnel, along with Tucson Police Department hostage negotiators and a bomb squad were standing by during the afternoon, but not active in enforcement or the investigation, said TPD spokeswoman Sgt. Maria Hawke in a press release.
“All we know is that no shots have been fired and there are no injuries,” an Air Force spokeswoman reiterated just before 4 p.m.
FBI agents from Tucson and Phoenix were sent to assist with the situation, FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson said.
No shots fired
No shots were fired, and there were no injuries, said Air Force Staff Sgt. Caitlin Jones, speaking before noon.
There were reports of a man with a weapon, said Air Force Tech Sgt. Russ Martin, speaking about 12:40 p.m..
Throughout the day, D-M and Tucson police personnel refused to confirm the reports, widespread by other news organizations, that a gunman was barricaded in an office building.
“Someone reported seeing something that ‘looked like a weapon’” carried on the base, Martin said.
“We’ll make sure we maintain a heightened level of security until everything is figured out,” Martin said at the time.
It’s unknown if the possible suspect is a civilian or member of the military, he said.
In what Martin termed “bad timing,” an ambulance that left the base during the lockdown was transporting a pregnant woman in labor.
Another ambulance that arrived at the base around 1:30 p.m. was responding to a diabetic patient, base personnel said via Twitter.
Lockdown
As the lockdown began around 10:30 a.m., all gates were closed, and no one was allowed on or off the base.
At 1:30 p.m., some cars were being allowed to exit, after being searched by armed Air Force personnel.
Around 2:30 p.m., a long steady stream of vehicles began exiting the base.
Fire rescue units entered the base just before noon, witnesses on the scene said.
The Tucson Police Department sent 10-15 personnel to D-M on Friday morning, but that number “may have included some dispatched to a fender-bender in the area,” said a spokeswoman, Sgt. Maria Hawke.
University Medical Center was placed on alert Friday morning because of the incident, but taken off the alert after 30 minutes, said spokeswoman Alexis Blue.
Base schools
Parents of students at Borman Elementary School and the Sonoran Science Academy charter school on the base were allowed to pick up their children after 4 p.m.
The schools had remained locked down through Friday afternoon.
Children at both schools were safe, Martin said around 12:40. Sonoran Science Academy confirmed that its students were safe on its Twitter account.
Students were not allowed to leave the schools, and parents were not allowed onto the base during the day, said the Air Force’s Martin and Karen Bynum of the Tucson Unified School District.
Davis-Monthan
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is home to six squadrons of the 355th Fighter Wing, with more than 6,000 airmen and 1,700 civilian employees. Primarily home to A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft, Air Force pararescue jumpers are also based there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD88durNo8s
I apologize for the erroneous title, but initial information was that there had been a shooting.
Such a strange story. But I guess it’s not that uncommon (lockdown) based on some of the other posts I’ve read today. Maybe it was just a test. I think that if I were the Air Force, I wouldn’t allow local SWAT anywhere near the base.
“following a reported sighting of an armed individual in and around one of our office buildings,”
Reminds one of the recent Virginia Tech allegations and subsequent lock-downs, eh?
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