Official: Pentagon shooter was well armed
The well-dressed gunman mortally wounded after firing at and injuring two Pentagon police officers was armed with two 9 millimeter semiautomatic weapons and carried several magazines of ammunition, the chief of the Pentagon police said Friday.
Chief Richard Keevill said the shooter, identified as John Patrick Bedell of Hollister, Calif., spent the last several weeks driving from the West Coast. Police found his car in a local parking garage. Keevill said authorities found more ammunition in his vehicle.
Bedell, 36, died Thursday night from head wounds received in a volley of fire with police. Keevill said the two injured officers and another officer who came to their assistance fired upon Bedell at the subway entrance into the massive Defense Department building in Arlington, Va.
"He came here from California," Keevill said. "We were able to identify certain locations that he spent that last several weeks making his way form the West coast to the East coast."
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Noting that Bedell was wearing a suit, Keevill said: "There was no indication based on the way he was dressed that he had hostile intent."
The exchange of fire lasted less than a minute, Keevill said.
Bedell was not wearing body armor, he added.
The two officers injured have been released from the hospital. One suffered a thigh wound and the other was hit in the shoulder. Keevill said both were superficial injuries.
Keevill said he did not know the shooter's motive.
"I have no idea what his intentions were," he said.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)