The Coasties are not responsible for this. It is the harbor unit of the DC police department from what I could see.
Here is what is damn funny. They, CNN, or some related flunky were monitoring the radio chatter and this is what they based the incident on. One guy says "halt or we will fire on you!" Then another says "Bang! Bang! Bang! (ten times) and the CNN news flash is born!!!!
Ten shots fired at unknown boat on the Potomac!!!!!!
This was all CNN! The guy in charge of the boats thought that as long as they were all together in the water and there job was done, that it would be a good idea to run a training scenario. I would have done the same thing!
CNN failed to verify this before airing it, and they went to air immediately with a bunch of shit. Now they are trying to find someone,,,,,,anyone to blame for their ignorance and incompetence.
Not able until now, a day and a half after all this went down, to peruse the real-time unfolding of this. All I'd heard was an announcement on the radio news, that it had happened ... but that it was a drill. "Boy, somebody's in trouble," chortles one of the news announcers. And I'm thinking, "You believe it???? How gullible can you get?" An officer Currier of the Coast Guard explains:
Currier says other agencies were not notified because of the low-profile and routine nature of the event.
Sept. 11, morning, in Washington D.C., less than a few miles away from where the U.S. president will speak. A branch of the U.S. Military.
ZERO "low profile" or "routine" could ever be associated with that scenario. It strains credulity to the breaking point to think any sensible person, let alone a group of sensible people, could think otherwise.
I wonder what the hell really went down.