The Senate was in session when the lockdown occurred, but the House of Representatives was not. Many members of congress had already departed in advance of the long Memorial Day holiday in the US. BBC News initally reported some witness as saying the sound may have been a car backfiring. The Associated Press and FOX News also reported speculation about fireworks or the gunfire having come from an indoor shooting range located in the basement of the Rayburn building. MSNBC suggested the noise may have been from a maintence man working on an elevator shaft near the area where the shots were heard. Current evidence indicates that the reports of gunfire in the Rayburn Building were actually staffers and Congresspeople hearing the sound of construction work in the elevator. A mechanic was reported to be using a pneumatic hammer, the sound of which, when echoing up the elvator shaft, could be misheard as gunfire by those unaccustomed to either sound. Reports of smoke have not been officially explained, though several comments have chalked the reports of smoke up as paranoia induced, suspecting people heard the warning of gunfire and attributed the origin of a slight or strange smell to the ignition of gunpowder.
The Senate was in session when the lockdown occurred, but the House of Representatives was not. Many members of congress had already departed in advance of the long Memorial Day holiday in the US. BBC News initially reported some witness as saying the sound may have been a car backfiring. The Associated Press and FOX News also reported speculation about fireworks or the gunfire having come from an indoor shooting range located in the basement of the Rayburn building. MSNBC suggested the noise may have been from a maintenance man working on an elevator shaft near the area where the shots were heard. Current evidence indicates that the reports of gunfire in the Rayburn Building were actually staffers and Congresspeople hearing the sound of construction work in the elevator. A mechanic was reported to be using a pneumatic hammer, the sound of which, when echoing up the elevator shaft, could be misheard as gunfire by those unaccustomed to either sound. Reports of smoke have not been officially explained, though several comments have chalked the reports of smoke up as paranoia induced, suspecting people heard the warning of gunfire and attributed the origin of a slight or strange smell to the ignition of gunpowder.
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