A shocking day etched in members’ memories

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay remembers July 24, 1998 like yesterday, and remains frustrated little could have been done to save two U.S. Capitol Police officers slain by a gunman.

Ten years after the in-the-line-of-duty killings of officers Jacob Chestnut, 58, and John Gibson, 42, memories of the violent day are still vivid for DeLay (Texas), then the Republican whip.

{mosads}“It’s not possible to forget that day,” he said in an interview. “I’m still angry. It’s just so frustrating.”

Gibson and Chestnut will be remembered at a memorial wreath-laying ceremony on Thursday scheduled for 3:40 p.m., the time of day when Russell Eugene Weston arrived at the Capitol and started shooting. It will take place at the eastern entrance, where the officers were killed, now named the Memorial Door in their honor.

DeLay’s frustration years later stems in part from knowing that officers he knew and saw on a daily basis were killed despite strict security measures. Though the level of violence that Friday had never before been experienced, officers were trained to be ready for it.

In the wake of the shootings, additional security has been added to the Capitol to protect those in it from deranged gunmen, as well as terrorist attacks. Still, it’s unclear if any of these changes would have been enough to keep Weston, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, from making his way into the eastern entrance of the Capitol building, known then as the Documents Door.

Weston approached the metal detector and allegedly shot Chestnut point-blank as he was speaking with a tourist. Chestnut was weeks away from retiring after 18 years as a Capitol Police officer.

Weston then ran through the metal detector toward DeLay’s office, setting off alarms as he went. Gibson, who served for three years as DeLay’s bodyguard, ordered Weston to put down his revolver.

He did not.

DeLay said Gibson did not immediately shoot Weston out of concern that at such close range, a staffer on the other side of the gunman might get hit. Instead, he ordered them to get down. As they did, Weston turned around, bringing him face to face with Gibson. Both opened fire.

“It sounded like somebody threw down a china cabinet,” said DeLay, who was in his office mere feet from Gibson and Weston.

Then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), walking to DeLay’s office from the House floor, was stopped by a reporter as he made his way through Statuary Hall. “It sounded like somebody was kicking garbage buckets down the hall,” said Hastert, who was meeting his wife in DeLay’s office.

“He was coming down to pick up his wife and they were ready to leave town for the weekend,” said John Feehery, DeLay’s press secretary at the time and a current contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog. “And if it hadn’t been for that reporter, he would have been right in the line of fire.”

Gibson died from his wounds, but Weston survived. Former Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a heart surgeon, helped resuscitate Weston at the scene, not knowing he was the gunman, and accompanied him to D.C. General Hospital.

Weston remains in a North Carolina prison, where he is being treated for schizophrenia and has been deemed unfit to stand trial by a U.S. District Court judge.

At the time, Capitol Police carried 9 mm firearms. After the shootings, police switched to more powerful .40 caliber handguns, partly because it took multiple shots for Weston to be stopped. The department also has added more than 400 Capitol Police officers to help secure the Capitol grounds from another attack.

Weston is believed to have come to the Capitol after airing grievances against the government and the CIA for attempting to conspire against him.

Similar conspiracies appeared to drive Michael Gorbey’s trip to Capitol Hill last January, which reminded some of the Capitol Hill shootings 10 years ago. Gorbey wore a flak jacket and carried a sword and a loaded shotgun, but police were able to detain him without gunfire. That’s evidence for some of the improved security measures Capitol Police have undertaken since Chestnut’s and Gibson’s killings.

Still, there’s only so much that can be done to secure the Capitol, a destination for thousands of tourists and people doing business.

“You’ve got to trade off security and openness in these kinds of institutions,” said former Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), who was in the Capitol when the 1998 shooting occurred.

“You have to ask, did the changes we put in place make the difference and therefore it hasn’t happened again, or was it a single incident that was destined to happen once and never again?” said Thomas, chairman of the House Administration Committee at the time of the shootings. “We don’t know these things.”

Whatever the case, Gibson, Chestnut and the events of July 24, 1998 clearly have not been forgotten.

DeLay is still angry at Weston for taking the lives of the two policemen. Gibson was usually the first and the last person DeLay saw every day on the Hill, he said.

“I always thank the Lord that I didn’t find Weston first because I don’t know what I would have done to him,” DeLay said.

Gibson’s and Chestnut’s legacies are also carried out by their families. Gibson’s son, Jack, and Chestnut’s son-in-law, Jason Culpepper, have followed in their footsteps and currently serve as U.S. Capitol Police officers.