Shooting of 2 officers closes Pentagon subway station

Shooting of 2 officers closes Pentagon subway station

An investigation into the shooting of two police officers outside the Pentagon subway station will close the transit hub Friday, affecting the commute of thousands of Washington-area residents, transit officials said.

A man calmly and cooly approached the officers Thursday, before pulling a gun out of his pocket and grazing them, authorities said. The two Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers returned fire with their semi-automatic weapons, critically wounding him, said Pentagon Police Chief Richard S. Keevill.

Subway trains will bypass the Pentagon station Friday as the FBI investigates, transit officials said.

The suspect had "no real emotion in his face" as he approached the officers, Keevill said.

"As the officers started to ask him for his pass to get into the Pentagon, he drew a weapon from his pocket and started shooting immediately at the officers" from a few feet away, the police chief said.

He would not identify the suspect, but praised the officers for acting "quickly and decisively to neutralize him as a threat" without hurting anyone else.

The transit station at the Pentagon, one of the busiest sites in the Washington area, serves two lines of the Washington-area subway, as well as myriad bus routes. All those passengers will be affected by the closing of the station and the temporary relocation of bus stops to a nearby subway station.