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Police in Washington say a major security alert on Capitol Hill turned out to be a false alarm triggered by a Hallowe'en costume. Police initially said they were hunting two intruders armed with a revolver who had breached a checkpoint at an office building belonging to the US House of Representatives. A security guard at the Cannon Office Building reported that a man had gone through the X-ray machine with a suspicious object in his backpack. But police later explained that two women staff members bringing in Hallowe'en costumes had caused the panic. "It was just an unusual set of...

A Halloween costume and plastic gun are the culprits in today's shutdown of the House of Representatives, Capitol police say. "Capitol police also said they had apprehended a suspect, according to an aide who said he heard the information via a pager system operated by security officials," the Associated Press reported. The hullabaloo lasted two hours or less.

A female worker brought a Halloween costume and a plastic gun into a congressional office building on Thursday, prompting an extraordinary shutdown of the House of Representatives, police told local television. The woman walked away from the security checkpoint before an officer was able to stop her, Chief Terrance Gainer told WRC-TV. He said there was no danger. The Cannon Office Building was shut down more than an hour, as police searched for two suspects — a man and a woman. Officials had said the man ran after security checkpoints detected a gun in his bag. The incident prompted the...

Searching for a lone gunman