Gunshots heard in NASA Building

[soiarrai]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18233965/

 

NASA evacuates Houston building amid alert

Authorities checking out report about gunman at Johnson Space Center

 

NASA Building 44 is in a relatively remote area of the Johnson Space Center campus in Houston, shown in this long-range aerial view.

 

A building at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston was evacuated Friday amid reports that an armed person was spotted there, the space agency said.

 

NASA security personnel as well as Houston police responded to "a report about a person with a weapon" at Building 44 on the space center's campus, agency spokeswoman Lynette Madison told MSNBC.com. She said that personnel were evacuated from the building, and that the situation was "ongoing." Police commandos were surrounding the building and searching inside.

 

KPRC, Houston's NBC affiliate, quoted authorities as saying a gunman was reportedly barricaded in a second-floor office. However, police told NBC that they could not yet confirm that a gunman was inside.

 

NASA sent an advisory to center personnel telling them to "shelter in place until further notice."

 

Space Center Intermediate School, which is near the campus, was placed in lockdown mode as a precaution, district officials told KPRC. Parents were asked to not come to the campus until the all-clear is given.

 

Building 44 is a communications and tracking development laboratory on a remote part of Johnson Space Center's sprawling campus, far from the Mission Control buildings. Security officials were looking into the possibility that the facility was connected to other buildings via underground tunnels.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Sounds like the wackos are on a frenzy.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Sounds like one murder, one injured and one suicide.

[Flashermac]

My question is how the perp got a weapon through NASA's very strict security, which usually includes metal detectors. At least the folks at Johnson had sense enough to shut everything down, unlike the uni pres in VA.

 

p.s. The guy was a contractor working for a company that deals with NASA.

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

Maybe he entered the building like airport employees do? Remember a little while ago when airport employee but 15 weapons in the cabin of one plane? One gun was an assalt rifle.

[Flashermac]

NASA security is supposed to be tighter than an old maid's fanny. In reality, there are slip ups. My father told me about going to work one day, only to realise he'd forgotten his badge. He just walked in and security waved him past. (They obviously knew him by sight.) It was only when he was leaving that one of the top people noticed he wasn't wearing his ID. The guy insisted my father must have lost his badge in the building. A quick search didn't turn it up, so they made my dad get a temporary badge. He said when he got home, there was his badge on the kichen table -- right where he knew he had left it.

 

Another time he and colleague decided to swap ID badges just for the hell of it. They wore each other's badge for a week and no one notice. His friend went so far as to stick a photo of Mickey Mouse over his own face on his ID. Mickey went to work with NASA for two weeks without ever being spotted!

 

Something like that must have happened here, though carrying in a pistol is still a bit hard to believe.

 

[Bangkoktraveler]

Hard to get a gun in thru the x-ray screener but it can be done. I went to our county building one day, put all my shit in the basket, walked thru the x-ray machine. After walking thru the x-ray machine, I was handed my tray of shit. I had a lot of papers in one of my pockets. As I was putting the pappers back in my pocket, I didn't realize that in the papers was a box cutter.