A law enforcement officer was injured and a suspect was arrested Wednesday after an SUV ran into a barrier outside the National Security Agency in Maryland amid gunfire, officials said.
The officer was taken to a hospital, Fort Meade police spokesman Larry Whitley told the Washington Post. Details about the officer’s condition and injuries were not released.
“NSA police and local law enforcement are addressing an incident that took place this morning at one of NSA’s security vehicle entry gates,” the agency said in a statement.
“The situation is under control and there’s no ongoing security or safety threat.”
A law enforcement source told Agence France-Presse that it was too early to know whether the incident was an attack on the NSA.
They are “still trying to ascertain the facts,” the source told the news outlet.
The FBI said it sent agents to the compound, which is known as the “Puzzle Palace.”
An NSA spokesman told AFP: “We can confirm there has been one person injured and we don’t know how the injuries occurred.”
President Trump was “briefed on the shooting at Ft. Meade,” and the White House offered thoughts and prayers with those who have been affected, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.
NBC News aired aerial images of what appeared to be police surrounding a handcuffed man on the ground outside the NSA facility in the suburbs of Washington, DC.
The black SUV appeared to have crashed into a concrete barricade near a toll-booth-style entrance gate along Maryland Route 32 in Arundel County, officials said.
Bullet holes were visible in the windshield and airbags were deployed. Blood-stained material could be seen on the ground.
The local NBC affiliate earlier reported that three people had been injured outside the headquarters of the top-secret intelligence organization responsible for global US electronic eavesdropping.
The agency made headlines in 2013 when former contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of its global surveillance programs, including its collection of data on US citizens.
Despite prominent highway signs, motorists occasionally take the wrong exit and end up at the NSA’s tightly secured gates. Most drivers then follow the orders of armed federal officers and turn around without getting into more trouble.
But in March 2015, a 27-year-old man was shot dead after a stolen SUV he was in tried to ram a gate at the compound. NSA police opened fire when the driver ignored commands to stop and the vehicle crashed into a police car.
One of the occupants died at the scene while the other suffered a gunshot wound to the chest.
The two men, disguised as women, had made a wrong turn into a restricted lane and may have refused to stop because, it later turned out, there were drugs in their vehicle.
With Post wires