Few details have been released. A police officer was killed Tuesday in an attack just yards from the Pentagon, which was briefly put on alert, the Defense Department security service confirmed. According to NBC News, it was a knife attack, and the assailant, whose identity or motivation is unknown, was shot and killed Tuesday night.
Employees of the US Department of Defense were called by a loudspeaker to stay inside the building around 10:40 a.m. after several shots were heard at the bus station near the famous building south of the capital, Washington, Virginia. The alert status was lifted at noon but the exits of the subway station and the bus station, which are a few meters from one of the entrances to the Pentagon but are accessible to the public, remained closed until further notice.
Local television channels showed dozens of police officers gathered outside the Washington hospital where the officer had been transferred in the afternoon to pay tribute to him.
The emergency services of Arlington, the commune where the Pentagon is located, headquarters of the Department of Defense and the command of the US Army, indicated that “several patients” were treated on the spot.
Defense Minister Lloyd Austin “was not in the building at the time of the incident,” spokesman John Kirby said. “The minister was informed of the incident at the Pentagon and is regularly informed of all new developments,” he added. Lloyd Austin and the chief of staff, General Mark Milley, were at the White House for a weekly meeting with President Joe Biden.