1998 United States Capitol shooting incident

Location: Washington, D.C.
Date: July 24, 1998; 25 years ago; 3:40 p.m. – 3:45 p.m. (UTC-4)

Deaths: 2
Non-fatal injuries: 2 (including the perpetrator)
Perpetrator: Russell Eugene Weston, Jr.

The 1998 United States Capitol shooting incident was an attack on July 24, 1998, which led to the deaths of two United States Capitol Police officers. Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson were killed when Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., entered the Capitol and opened fire. Chestnut was killed instantly and Gibson died during surgery at George Washington University Hospital. Weston's exact motives are unknown, but he has a mental disorder and maintains a strong distrust of the federal government. He remains in a mental institution due to paranoid schizophrenia and has yet to be tried in court.

Shooting

On the day of shooting, Officer Chestnut and an unarmed, civilian security aide were assigned to operate the X-ray machine and magnetometer at the Document Door entrance located on the East Front of the Capitol, which was open only to Members of Congress and their staff. Detective Gibson was assigned to the dignitary protection detail of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and was in his suite of offices near this door. Weston, armed with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson six-shot revolver, entered the Document Door at 3:40 p.m. At the same time, Officer Chestnut was providing directions to a tourist and his son . Weston walked through the metal detector, causing it to alarm, Chestnut requested he go back through the detector. Weston suddenly produced the gun and without warning, shot Chestnut in the back of the head at point-blank range. At this time, Officer Douglas McMillan, although normally working outside the Capitol, was nearby retrieving keys to get a wheelchair for a tourist. As Weston shot Officer Chestnut, Officer McMillan immediately returned fire, causing Weston to shoot toward McMillan. Weston then ran away from McMillan, turning into the first nearby open door that he found. Unfortunately, Ofc McMillan was unable to successfully hit Weston, due to the many civilians in the immediate area. According to witnesses, Weston turned down a short corridor and pushed through a door which leads to a group of offices used by senior Republican representatives including then Majority Whip Tom DeLay and Representative Dennis Hastert, future Speaker of the House and a close protégé of then Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Upon hearing the gunfire, Detective Gibson, who was in plainclothes, told the office staff to hide under their desks. Within seconds, Gibson was shot after the suspect entered DeLay's office. Despite being mortally wounded, Detective Gibson was able to return fire, and wound the suspect hitting him with 4 rounds, severely wounding him and causing him to be apprehended in that office by Officer Vincent Farri and Sergeant John Planchart. A female tourist was grazed by shrapnel on her face and shoulder, from a marble wall, as Officer McMillan's rounds impacted on the wall, while he was attempting to hit a fleeing Weston. She was treated for her injuries and released.. Future Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, a heart surgeon who had been presiding on the Senate floor just before the shooting, resuscitated the gunman and accompanied him to D.C. General Hospital.

After the shooting



A Capitol Police Honor Guard salutes the coffins of Officer Jacob Chestnut and Detective John Gibson in the Capitol Rotunda as they lie in repose

Officers Chestnut and Gibson were the two people killed in the attack. Following the shooting, both officers received the tribute of lying in honor in the United States Capitol rotunda. They were the first police officers, and Chestnut was the first African American, to receive the honor.

In 1999, Weston was found incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness as he was a man with schizophrenia who stopped taking his medication A judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered that he be treated with antipsychotic medication without his consent in 2001, and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the decision. In 2004, the court determined that Weston still was not competent to be tried, despite ongoing treatment, and suspended but did not dismiss the criminal charges against him. Weston was known to the United States Secret Service prior to the incident as a person who had threatened the President of the United States.



Officer Jacob Chestnut, USCP

The shooting led to the creation of the United States Capitol Police Memorial Fund, a nonprofit organization managed by the Capitol Police Board which provides funds for the families of Chestnut and Gibson. In November 2005, the fund was expanded to include the family of Sgt. Christopher Eney, a USCP officer killed during a training accident in 1984. The shooting was cited as one reason for the development of the Capitol Visitors Center. The legislation authorizing the construction of the facility was introduced by Washington, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and was entitled the Jacob Joseph Chestnut-John Michael Gibson United States Capitol Visitor Center Act of 1998. The door where Weston entered was renamed in honor of the two officers, from the Document Door to the Chestnut-Gibson Memorial Door.

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Officers

Main articles: Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson (police officer)



Detective John Gibson, USCP

Detective John Michael Gibson (March 29, 1956 – July 24, 1998) was a United States Capitol Police officer assigned to the dignitary protection detail of Congressman Tom DeLay. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery after lying in honor with Chestnut in the Capitol rotunda. Detective Gibson had served with the agency for 18 years. He was a native of Massachusetts who married the niece of Representative Joe Moakley, Democrat of Massachusetts.[18] He had three children, a 17-year-old daughter and two boys, ages 15 and 14. Growing up in New England, Det. Gibson was a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, and on August 11, 1998, his beloved team had a moment of silence in his honor prior to a game with the Kansas City Royals.

Officer Jacob Joseph Chestnut (April 28, 1940 – July 24, 1998), was the first African American to lie in honor at the Capitol. Chestnut, a retired United States Air Force veteran, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral included a speech by President Bill Clinton and a fly-over by military jets in a missing man formation. A United States Post Office located in Fort Washington, Maryland has been renamed in their honor.

Capitol Shooter's Mind-Set Detailed



Russell Weston at the time of defense psychiatrists' interview. (DC Public Defenders Office)

By Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 23, 1999; Page A1

Russell Eugene Weston Jr. told a court-appointed psychiatrist that he stormed the U.S. Capitol last summer, killing two police officers, to prevent the United States from being annihilated by disease and legions of cannibals.

"He described his belief that time was running out and that if he did not come to Washington, D.C., he would become infected with Black Heva," wrote Sally C. Johnson, the psychiatrist who examined Weston last fall. Weston called this imaginary ailment the "most deadliest disease known to mankind" and said it was spread by the rotting corpses of cannibals' victims, Johnson wrote.

Weston told Johnson he went to the Capitol to gain access to what he called "the ruby satellite," a device he said was kept in a Senate safe. That satellite, he insisted, was the key to putting a stop to cannibalism.

The former mental patient told another doctor that he fatally shot officers Jacob J. Chestnut and John M. Gibson on July 24 because they were cannibals who were keeping him from the satellite.

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© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

A Hero's Final Journey



Pallbearers carry the casket of Detective John Gibson to his gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery. (AFP Photo)

By Marylou Tousignant and Patricia Davis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 31, 1998; Page A01

On Shirley Highway overpasses, they waved tiny flags as the long funeral cortege passed. On the freeway below, they pulled over and climbed out of their cars. On the streets of a grieving capital, small children were hoisted onto their parents' shoulders to watch this last journey of a hero they never knew.

And on a sultry summer afternoon yesterday, beneath the shade of a red maple tree at Arlington National Cemetery, slain Capitol Police Detective John Michael Gibson was laid to rest.

The 1,000-vehicle motorcade that traveled 35 miles from a Prince William County church to the Mall and then on to Arlington halted lunch-hour routines and, for many, became a somber reminder of American values.

Along the Mall, souvenir and refreshment sales slowed to a trickle, and families picnicking on the grass looked up to catch a glimpse of the hearse carrying the body of Gibson, 42. Office workers, tourists and police officers saluted or placed their hands over the hearts as it passed, some in tears.



Members of the U.S. Capitol Police honor guard fold the flag that draped Gibson's casket as Gibson's widow (second from right, seated) looks on. (AFP Photo)

The motorcade stretched for more than 14 miles and took about a half-hour to pass by. It began after Gibson's funeral at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Lake Ridge, traveled up Interstates 95 and 395 and went past the U.S. Capitol, where Gibson worked for 18 years and where he was slain last Friday.

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Although not a military funeral, the half-hour service included a 21-gun salute and the sounding of taps. Lynn Gibson, her children seated next to her, was presented with the American flag that had draped their father's coffin.

At the end of the ceremony, she slowly stood and, leaning forward, placed a long-stemmed red rose on her husband's casket. Carved into the polished dark wood surface was the name "John Michael Gibson" and the emblem of the police department he so loved.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company