The FBI has started an investigation into three Northern Virginia shootings after tests confirmed shots fired at the Pentagon and the Marine Corps museum came from the same weapon, raising concerns that area military institutions could be under attack.
The bureau is looking for a connection between those attacks and the shooting at a Marine Corps recruiting center in Chantilly, Va.
Between Monday night and Tuesday morning, a bullet crashed through the window of the strip-mall recruitment office, Fairfax County police said. Like in the other attacks, authorities said, no one was in the building and no one was injured. The bullets from the recruiting center are being tested to see if they’re from the same weapon used at the Pentagon on Oct. 17 and the National Museum of the Marine Corps on Oct. 19, the FBI said.
“This is obviously some sort of planned effort involving military targets of some kind,” said Joseph diGenova, former U.S. attorney for the District. “People who live in the D.C. area have to be aware that they’re in a target for terrorism and also a target for disgruntled people.”
An employee at the recruiting center at 13881 MetroTech Drive found two bullet holes, one through the window of the recruiting office and another through the window of an adjacent business, police said. Authorities have said they believe the shots at the Pentagon came from a rifle. The FBI would not confirm the type of weapon used.
DiGenova said the attacks do not appear to have a terrorism link.
“If this were terrorism, we’d be talking about dead bodies, not nicks on walls,” he said. “We’re talking about an unstable person with a grudge.”
Just who that person could be will be the subject of the FBI’s investigation.
The attacks are likely to remind Washington-area residents of October 2002, when John Allen Muhammad and his teenage protege Lee Boyd Malvo used a high-powered rifle to shoot and kill 10 people along the Capital Beltway and wounded three others.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is asking that anyone with information call Crime Solvers at 866-411-TIPS/8477.
“We want the public to be alert and report any suspicious activity,” an FBI spokesman said.
