UPDATE 5PM -
A child was found unhurt in the suspect's car, authorities said. After making an initial identification of the suspect, police are trying to confirm that the suspect is a 34-year-old woman from Stamford, Conn., with a history of mental health issues.
UPDATE 7:00 PM - Suspect identified as Miram Carey
Sources said Miriam Carey, who formerly lived in Brooklyn, was licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut and had a permit to work as a hygienist in Connecticut prisons.
In light of the new information above, we have to wonder
Why was Miriam Cary in DC today with her small child?
UPDATE 9:00 AM October 4, 2013, day after the event.
We now hear from Miriam's mother, boss, and neighbor:
She had post-partum depression... She added, "A few months later, she got sick. She was depressed. ... She was hospitalized." Idella Carey said her daughter had "no history of violence" and she did not know why she was in Washington, D.C. She said she believed Carey was taking the little girl to a doctor's appointment today in Connecticut.
Dr. Steven Oken, her boss of eight years, described Carey as a "non-political person" who was "always happy."
"I would never in a million years believe that she would do something like this," he said. "It's the furthest thing from anything I would think she would do, especially with her child in the car. I am floored that it would be her."
A neighbor, Erin Jackson, said she believed Carey lived in the Stamford home with the baby and the girl's father. Asked if she believed Carey suffered from a mental illness, Jackson said "absolutely." She said the woman's tires recently were slashed in an incident in Connecticut.
The woman that was shot and killed, Miriam Carey, had her child in the back seat of the car.
This doesn't sound like a person intent on storming the White House on purpose. She did not have a gun and did not shoot anyone.
I just read this Washington Post story.
This could have been me back in 1991 when I got lost in DC trying to show my child the White House while driving by on my way from New England to Utah. I got so hopelessly mixed up, that after an hour of trying to get out of the area and failing, I pulled into a check point to ask for directions . I was not shot. I was not treated like a terrorist. For sure, the guards were not the least bit pleased, but had enough compassion to treat me like the lost and confused country mouse that I was.
But not the Secret Service person on duty today when a woman and her child most likely accidently found themselves at a security checkpoint. As this first hand report states, she tried to turn around and leave.
It began near the White House, at 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Oregon residents B.J. and Susan Campbell saw a black Infinity driven by a woman heading west on Pennsylvania, into a security checkpoint. The driver went about 20 yards, B.J. Campbell said, before rapidly turning the car around at the concrete security barriers.
“The Secret Service guy was just having a cow,” B.J. Campbell said. “Yelling at her and banging on the car.” The Secret Service officers pulled a black metal gate into her path and she slowed to try to go around it. Then the agent moved the gate in front of her again.
At that point “she just gunned it,” B.J. Campbell said. “She ran the barricade down and the guy; knocked him up onto her hood. He rolled off into the street and she tore off down Pennsylvania Avenue.” The whole encounter lasted about 20 seconds, he said.
There is more to this story, I am sure.
WHAT IS TRUE, after reviewing videos of the incidents leading up to this woman, with a historyof mental illness, being shot is THAT SHE WAS ENDANGERING her child as well as anyone in her path. Perhaps this is what motivated the police to shoot to kill.
But this eye witness report speaks volumes and a mother is dead this afternoon. Possibly a lost, confused, and then terrified mother. Possible a mother hearing voices? Why would she have been so terrified? Terrified enough to run down a barricade put in front of her car by a screaming man, pounding on her car?
Could this have been handled by the Secret Service in another way? Compassion for the Secret Service officer is also warranted. Who knows what scenarios he was experiencing at the time.
These are trying and dangerous times.