Murder In The House

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Weston came charging into DeLay's suite, already hit by the hail of fire from the other cops at the entrance. "They were laying down some lead," says a staff member who was inside. Gibson, also an 18-year veteran, saw the gun and did it by the book. He yelled, "Drop your weapon!" Weston got off two shots, hitting Gibson in the leg and chest; Gibson shot him in the leg, and both men went down, Weston's gun landing on a staff member's desk. DeLay burst from his office at the sound of the shooting and began grabbing people and pushing them into his office, herding some of the women into a private bathroom and locking the door. There was blood everywhere. With so much gunfire, a source inside says, "we didn't know if it was terrorists or not." As Chestnut and Gibson lay dying, Capitol police swarmed in, surrounded Weston, got his gun and trained theirs on his head. He was woozy, bleeding from multiple wounds in his legs and chest, but conscious as emergency medics arrived and went to work. "Thank God there was a good guy with a gun," says the staff member, "or there would have been a lot more dead people."

Outside DeLay's office, Justin Brown worked at the little gift shop right off the Crypt. "The first thing I heard was a big boom," he says. "I looked to my right. I saw a guy with a gun. The first thing I thought was 'Duck!'" Brown says more shots were fired in a matter of seconds. "It was like a running gunfight." He saw the flash of a gun, then saw Chestnut on the ground bleeding heavily. "Officer down!" someone shouted. Angela Dickerson, a 24-year-old tourist from Virginia, was wounded in the face and shoulder. One man threw his wife to the ground and lay on top of her. Families were separated in the melee as they raced to find someplace to hide. Jered Addotta from Rockford, Ill., 14, was in the Crypt when the firing began. "We saw people fall like a wave when they heard the gunfire," he says. He panicked. "I tried to go beneath a table; no room. Then I saw my dad running, so I followed him, but I lost him."

Ronald Beamish, 69, visiting from England, went over to Chestnut and felt for a pulse; it was failing. "You'll be all right," he said. "You'll be all right." Over on the Senate side of the Capitol, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, a heart surgeon in his former life, got word of the shootings and raced across to the scene as medics poured in from the ambulances outside. He worked to resuscitate first one victim, then another. "I was really just focused on keeping their hearts and lungs moving," he said. Gibson was hustled out to a helicopter and whisked away to Washington Hospital Center; DeLay gathered his staff to pray for the officer. Frist meanwhile stayed with Weston, unaware that he was the shooter, helping to keep him ventilated as they rode in the ambulance to D.C. General Hospital.