| Swarms of police officers descended on the heart of state government Wednesday, as reports of a masked and hooded gunman perched on the roof of the Legislative Office Building parking garage led to the evacuation of dozens of political power brokers and the lockdown of the state Capitol for hours. Late Wednesday, the buildings were secure and police sources said they were investigating the possibility that the two witnesses who reported seeing the gunman may have actually seen a television cameraman filming a commercial on the roof. That possibility seemed more likely late in the day when a film company called police to say they were worried that their cameraman may have been mistaken for a gunman, sources said. The tense evacuation occurred on opening day of the legislative session in Hartford and just as Gov. John G. Rowland was finishing his annual budget address to the General Assembly. The overwhelming police response, including a half-dozen snipers positioned on a highway overpass and the steep roof of the State Armory, began about 1 p.m. when two women made separate reports to the Capitol police that they had seen a man in a mask, hood and dark clothes holding a long-barreled gun on the garage roof. Both women were sitting in the LOB's cafeteria, which has a window facing the garage, when they saw the man, police said. One told police the man was armed with a machine gun while the other simply said he had a rifle of some kind, said Lt. Neil Dryfe, a Hartford police spokesman. After police completed their search of the garage and the LOB several hours later, they reported finding no weapons. But police said they found other items, which they would not identify, which may have been left behind by a gunman or may have simply been dropped on the ground by someone else. The reports, which were made separately and contained similar details and descriptions, were deemed credible enough to warrant a full evacuation of the LOB, police said. Shortly before 7 p.m., police declared the buildings secure and allowed the evacuated state workers, legislators and visitors to return to their cars. Some workers were escorted to their cars, and all of the cars were searched as they left the garage. Rowland had just finished proposing an additional $9 million for security at state buildings when Capitol police locked down the LOB. Rowland remained inside the Capitol in a "secure position" with several state troopers guarding him, said state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance. Those who were evacuated to the Capitol were not allowed to leave for hours, and police prevented anyone from entering the Capitol and the LOB from outside throughout the search. Before Capitol police made the decision to close the LOB, they contacted National Guard officials at the state Armory, where military exercises are sometimes conducted. But police were told that there were no exercises being done in which someone would be standing on the LOB garage roof with a gun, police said. By that time, Capitol police had blocked off all the entrances from the garage to the LOB and ruled out the possibility that any gunman could have gotten into the office building. Hartford police and state police from Troop H in Hartford were also called in to secure the garage and set up a perimeter blocking all traffic from the gunman's range. While uniformed officers from Hartford and state police blocked off several city streets and I-84 access ramps to the Capitol area, SWAT team members from Hartford and state police departments conducted a swift search of the garage. Other SWAT team members, dressed in black helmets and armed with rifles, stationed themselves on the roof of the Armory while still others crouched behind the railing of the I-84 exit ramp, providing a clear view to the garage. The state police helicopter, Trooper One, used a thermal imaging device to scan the garage for signs of someone hiding inside. After police cleared the upper floors of the garage, there was a tense moment when the helicopter pilot thought he saw someone in the second-floor stairwell, according to police. The object turned out to be a directional sign, police said. Other officers involved in the search could be heard on police radios expressing concern about stepping outside and exposing themselves to some of the surrounding police snipers. The concern, police said, was based on the fact that several agencies were working together and may not have been communicating on the same radio frequencies. Hartford police also called in their armored personnel carrier, a military-type vehicle that stopped at the police command post at Capitol Avenue and Hungerford Street a few hours into the search. Dozens of people who had been inside the LOB were evacuated via an underground tunnel to the Capitol building. The evacuation took about two hours and involved numerous political leaders from across the state. "All of a sudden, the police were showing up and they seemed very urgent about things," said Mike DeNegris, the mayor of Wolcott, who went to the Capitol to hear Rowland's speech and then stopped at the LOB cafeteria afterward. "For a while, we couldn't get out of the building, and then they finally let us out. Everyone seemed to be pretty calm about it." Once the evacuation was finished, the emergency response teams began a thorough, floor-by-floor search of the garage and the LOB. The search teams inspected every car parked in the garage as well as every office in the LOB, Vance said. An investigation into the incident is being led by the state police Central District Major Crime Squad, which will try to determine if there was someone on the roof and what he or she may have been doing there, Vance said. Service on the Amtrak rail lines behind the garage was suspended throughout the search, stopping a northbound train in Berlin and southbound trains in Windsor and Springfield. Across the street from the Capitol, a matinee performance of Phantom of the Opera already had begun at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts when police descended on the grounds outside. The show went on. So did an evening performance of the play and an Elton John-Billy Joel concert. For Hartford Mayor Eddie A. Perez, the incident had surreal overtones. He was at the Capitol to hear Rowland's speech and to lobby for more state money to cover the city's response to emergency incidents following the Sept. 11 attacks. "Today's events highlight that," Matt Hennessy, Perez's chief of staff, said, adding, "It's certainly a bizarre day."
Courant Staff Writers Mark Pazniokas, Alaine Griffin, Johnny Mason, Rachel Gottlieb, Steve Goode, Dwight Blint and David Kim contributed to this report.
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