Indiana man fires gun at White House

by Terence Hunt
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A middle-aged accountant with a history of mental illness fired several shots outside the White House yesterday, then was shot by the Secret Service in a tense, noontime standoff that sent tourists running for cover.

The midday drama unfolded just outside the fence at the edge of the South Lawn, 200 yards from the building where President Bush was exercising inside.

The man, identified by law enforcement sources as Robert W. Pickett, 47, from Evansville, Ind., had been fired by the Internal Revenue Service in the mid 1980s. Neighbors said Pickett kept to himself and resented the IRS. In court records, Pickett had acknowledged suffering from mental illness and trying to commit suicide after his dismissal.

President Bush was alerted by Secret Service agents "but understood that he was not in any danger," spokesman Ari Fleischer said. First lady Laura Bush was in Texas. Vice President Dick Cheney was working in his White House office.

The shooting was the latest in a string of security scares that have brought tighter protection for the first family. In 1995, then-President Clinton ordered Pennsylvania Avenue closed in front of the White House following the Oklahoma City bombing. Earlier that year, a man was shot on the White House lawn after scaling a fence with an unloaded gun.

The latest incident, shortly before noon on a sunny, spring-like day, triggered a tight security clampdown. Tourists were evacuated from White House rooms, and police in riot gear took up positions around the executive mansion and beyond its gates.

Dan Halpert, a tourist from Queens, N.Y., was on the National Mall nearby, when officers told him to get down and clear out.

"We were all running away. It was scary," said Halpert, 24.

The confrontation occurred on E Street where tourists gather along the White House fence to snap photos of the executive mansion and hope for a glimpse of Bush jogging on the track encircling the South Lawn. There is an unobstructed view from the fence to the mansion about 200 yards away.

Secret Service officers on routine patrol in a car "heard shots fired and proceeded to surround a subject who was wielding a weapon, a gun," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. A 10-minute standoff ensued in which witnesses said they heard officers try to persuade the man to put the gun down.

"He was waving it in the air - it was pointed at the White House at one point - and pointing it in all directions," said Park Police spokesman Rob MacLean. At another point the man placed the gun in his mouth, MacLean said.

Pickett was shot in the right knee by a member of the Secret Service's Emergency Response Team when he "raised the gun again and started aiming it at people," a Secret Service source said, talking on condition of anonymity.

A five-shot, .38-caliber handgun and shell casings were recovered at the scene, a Secret Service official said.

Pickett was taken to George Washington University Hospital, five blocks away, where he was in stable condition and undergoing surgery and psychological evaluation. Dr. Yolanda Haywood, associate professor of emergency medicine, said he was silent, unusually calm for someone with a bullet wound.

In Evansville, Secret Service agents searched Pickett's home, looking for firearms, threatening letters or other evidence. Before entering, officers from the Evansville police bomb squad scouted outside for booby traps or bombs.

Pickett had no criminal record and was not listed in Secret Service files as a potential threat to the president, authorities said. He lived alone in a modest, two-story house that had been owned by his parents before their deaths.

"I don't recall that there were ever any cars coming in to visit or any people associating with him. He was really always by himself," said Marwan Wafa of Racine, Wis., who lived across the street from Pickett for seven years before moving last summer.

Evansville attorney Joseph Yocum represented Pickett when he was fired by the IRS in the mid-1980s. "They said he wasn't doing his job properly and having trouble with attendance," Yocum said. "I understand he did" have mental problems as well.

Pickett lost the appeal of his firing and later acted as his own attorney in an 1994 lawsuit against the IRS, contending the firing violated his constitutional rights. Records show that a judge dismissed the lawsuit at the IRS' request and that Pickett had four other lawsuits in federal court.

Mike Jewel, who lives next door to Pickett, said the accountant remained angry with the IRS after the litigation. "I could tell he was aggravated by the tax system and the IRS sometimes," Jewel said.

Prosecutors said agents were interviewing witnesses and that no charges would be filed before Thursday. Authorities were weighing whether to charge him with violating Washington's local ban on handguns, or a more serious federal citation of endangering a federal officer.

The shooting adds a new dynamic to an already heated debate over whether to reopen Pennsylvania Avenue, on the other side of the White House. Clinton followed the Secret Service's warnings about security threats in closing the famed street, but businessmen and city officials have pressed to have the decision reversed. The Republican Party platform last year called for the reopening.

Fleischer said Bush "has made no determination at this time as to what he will do or what he won't do." He said Bush had discussed the issue with the Secret Service and Mayor Anthony Williams.