By Allison Klein and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; A01
A man drove past security and onto the grounds of the U.S. Capitol yesterday morning and then ran deep inside the building, leading police on a wild chase covering all four main floors before he was cornered in the basement.
More than 25 officers pursued the man, and some managed to wrestle him to the floor outside a room where flags are stored. It was only after they searched him that they found a loaded gun in his waistband. No shots were fired, and no one was injured.
The man, identified as Carlos Greene, 20, also was carrying crack cocaine and cash, authorities said. He suffered a seizure after his arrest and was hospitalized last night.
Police said they had been unable to interview Greene and had not determined why he went to the Capitol in a borrowed sport-utility vehicle.
The episode raised questions about security, and authorities have promised a thorough investigation. Besides getting onto the grounds by crashing through a construction site just behind the Capitol, Greene apparently had little trouble getting inside the building through a restricted entrance on the third floor.
The incident was remarkable in light of the security buildup that followed the slayings of two Capitol Police officers in 1998 and the roughly $2 billion Congress has budgeted for its security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It also uncovered weaknesses in a Capitol police force that has grown to 2,300 officers -- bigger than the police departments of some cities.
"It's not a good set of circumstances when a person with a gun can enter the Capitol," said former Capitol Police chief Terrance W. Gainer, who left the department in the spring. "Something didn't happen right."
The incident began about 7:45 a.m. and ended minutes later. Authorities locked down the Capitol until 9 a.m. while they sorted out what had happened, and the security gaps were quickly apparent. It was not until 5:30 p.m. that Acting Capitol Police Chief Christopher M. McGaffin came forward to give the first official account; throughout the day, his spokeswoman declined repeatedly to talk to reporters.
McGaffin pledged to review security and make all needed improvements.
"This was unacceptable by my expectations for the Capitol Police," he said. "It was an unfortunate breach of our security, but it wasn't a total breach. . . . We isolated this individual. We subdued him. No one was hurt."
Greene, of Silver Spring, had drugs in his system, McGaffin said. Greene, who will be charged with possession of a handgun and related offenses, including assaulting a police officer, McGaffin said, could be in U.S. District Court by today.
Court records show that Greene has had brushes with the law in Maryland and the District in the past three years. He was convicted of disorderly conduct in Montgomery County and of fleeing a law enforcement officer in the District. He is awaiting trial in the District after a June arrest on gun and traffic charges. He was to appear today before a judge in Montgomery for allegedly violating terms of his probation.
Greene was locked up for a short stretch this summer but apparently has been free since late July. Attempts to reach his family members for comment, at home and by telephone, were unsuccessful.
Police said Greene drove the Chevy Trailblazer down First Street NE, near the Supreme Court and the east side of the Capitol.
Accounts varied on how the SUV came to be there. At one time, police said it had been stolen. Later, authorities said they were told it had been rented by a Montgomery man who had then given the keys to a relative.
Montgomery police gave this account: About 8:30 a.m. they received a report that the vehicle, with the key in the ignition, had vanished from near an apartment complex in the 11700 block of Old Columbia Pike in Silver Spring.
After the Capitol incident, Capitol Police talked to the man who made the report. The man, according to Montgomery police, then said that the SUV was not stolen but that it had not been returned as expected. Capitol Police said they could not confirm the account.
At the Capitol, the Trailblazer hit or nicked a Capitol Police vehicle and cruised through an open gate to a construction site on Capitol grounds, where workers were erecting the Capitol Visitor Center, police said. The center -- a project budgeted at more than $550 million -- is set to open next summer and has been under construction for several years.
The Capitol Police vehicle was supposed to be blocking the gate, McGaffin said. But Greene got past it and crashed the SUV into a concrete barrier that was protecting a skylight at the visitor center. He then bailed out of the truck, ran about 150 feet and darted up the east stairs to the rotunda and into the building.
Greene first tried to enter the Capitol on the second floor but was unsuccessful, police said. He got in through a construction entrance on the third floor, McGaffin said.
That door was open because construction workers were working inside the entrance, law enforcement sources said. That entrance did not have a metal detector and was not open to the public. McGaffin said he had no information about whether the entrance was guarded.
Once inside, Greene raced past the second floor, which houses offices of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Next he went downstairs to the area known as the Crypt, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Greene fled down another set of stairs and into the basement, where he was caught, authorities said.
Because of the early morning hour, the building was not crowded with staffers and visitors.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said the incident represented the most serious security breach at the Capitol since July 1998, when a former mental patient stormed past a screening device and killed Capitol Police officers Jacob J. Chestnut and John M. Gibson.
Norton said police acted heroically yesterday, but would have to scrutinize security, especially at the entrances. "He did penetrate the Capitol," she said.
McGaffin said police use rings of security, including technology, alarms, officers and barriers. He added that authorities are going over surveillance tapes, protocol and procedures and will make improvements.
"This is not the fault of a police officer," McGaffin said. "We're taking a look at our systems."
The Capitol is a "safe building . . . safe this morning, and . . . safe tonight," he said yesterday.
Staff writers Charles Babington, Henri E. Cauvin, Spencer S. Hsu, Allan Lengel, Ernesto Londoño, Robert Samuels and Martin Weil and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
