User:Daysleeper47/CapitolShooting

The United States Capitol shooting incident of 1998 was an attack on July 24, 1998 by Russell Eugene Weston Jr. which led to the death of two United States Capitol Police officers, Detective John Gibson and Private First Class Jacob Chestnut.

Weston, armed with a handgun, entered the Document Door entrance on the East Front of the Capitol, which is open only to Members of Congress and their staff, at 3:40 p.m. Weston reportedly walked around the metal detector just inside the entrance manned by Chestnut who asked him to go back through the detector. Weston suddenly produced the gun and without warning shot Chestnut in the back of the head at point-blank range. Witnesses say he turned down a short corridor and pushed through a door which leads to a group of offices used by senior Republican representatives including Majority Whip Tom DeLay and Representative Dennis Hastert, a close protégé to Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Detective Gibson, who was in plainclothes, was shot after the suspect entered the office of Congressman DeLay. Despite being mortally wounded, Detective Gibson was able to return fire and wounded the suspect.

A female tourist suffered minor injuries after bullets grazed her shoulder and face. A severly wounded Weston was apprehended in the office suite of Congressman Tom DeLay.

After the shooting
Officers Chestnut and Gibson were the only two people killed in the attack. Following the shooting, both officers received the tribute of lying in honor at the United States Capitol. They were the first police officers and Chestnut was the first African American to receive the honor.

In 1999, Weston was found incompetent to stand trial due to mental illness as he was a schizophrenic who stopped taking his medication. A federal judge ordered that he be treated with antipsychotic medication without his consent in 2001, and an appellate court upheld this decision. In 2004, the court determined that Weston still was not competent to be tried, despite ongoing treatment, and suspended but did not dismiss the criminal charges against him.

Weston was known to the United States Secret Service prior to the incident as a person who had threatened the President of the United States.

The shooting was cited as one reason for the development of the Capitol Visitors Center. The legislation authorizing the construction of the facility was enrolled by Washington, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and was entitled the Jacob Joseph Chestnut-John Michael Gibson United States Capitol Visitor Center Act of 1998.

The officers
Detective John Michael Gibson (March 29, 1956 – July 24, 1998) was a United States Capitol Police officer assigned to the dignitary protection detail of Congressman Tom DeLay. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery after lying in honor with Chestnut in the U.S. Capitol. Detective Gibson had served with the agency for 18 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Officer Jacob Joseph Chestnut (April 28, 1940 - July 24, 1998), was the first African American to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol. Chestnut is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral included a speech by President Bill Clinton and a fly-over by military jets in a missing man formation.

In 2000, the building housing the U.S. Air Force's 20th Security Forces Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina was dedicated to Officer Chestnut, a former member of the Air Force Security Forces.

The Suspect
The shooter, Russell Eugene Weston, Jr. was born December 28, 1956 and grew up in Valmeyer, Illinois. A diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, Weston was fond of hacking at trees which filled his back yard following the Mississippi River floods of 1993.

Many of Weston's neighbors had disliked him, and often ignored him rather than communicate. They considered him to be unusual, and sometimes eccentric. Weston had once thought that his neighbor was using his television satellite dish to spy on his actions. He also believed that Navy SEALs were hiding in his cornfield. Two days prior to the Capitol shooting, at his grandmother's insistence to do something about the cats nearby because they were becoming a nuisance, Weston shot and killed 14 cats, leaving a couple in a bucket and burying the rest.

Weston had also spent around fifty days in a mental hospital after threatening a Montana resident. He was released after testing as being of no danger to himself or anyone else.