The Pentagon is a huge building in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. It is the military headquarters for our nation. It teems with thousands of military and civilian employees, who usually go about their important business in a very normal way. There is normal security provided. There is no reason to expect violence at that location.
Yet for reasons that have not been determined, an individual who provided no warning created a highly dangerous confrontation Thursday evening at the very busy subway stop near the Pentagon.
The man walked up to a Pentagon security checkpoint at 6:40 p.m., drew a handgun from his pocket, then inexplicably shot and wounded two Pentagon police officers. They returned fire, killing the attacker. Fortunately, the wounds to the police officers reportedly were not life-threatening, but they resulted from a very serious situation.
The incident, which could have been far worse, was highly alarming because it involved dangerous violence near the Pentagon, where many innocent people might have been killed or wounded by the gunfire.
We read daily about terrorist acts of violence by suicide bombers and other attackers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we do not expect such threats in or near our nation’s capital community — or in Chattanooga (see comments above).
Unfortunately, there are many evil, many deranged, many criminal people in our world, who too often commit horrible acts of violence. Extensive efforts are made to assure safety, but there are no precautions that can guarantee avoidance of terrible and unpredictable acts by a few individuals.