Suspicious incident shuts down Metro station near Washington

Associated Press Writer

TEMPLE HILLS, Md (AP) -- A Metro subway station just outside Washington was closed Tuesday after an armed man sprayed a substance into the air from a pump-action bottle as he scuffled with police. Authorities apprehended the man and said they didn't believe it was a terrorist act.

"It appears at this point to be an isolated incident," said Prince Georges County Police Chief John Farrell. Tests on the scene "do not indicate these are any biological agents at all," he said, although Farrell and other authorities cautioned that testing was still under way.

Fire department hazardous-material teams in protective rubber suits responded after several people reported being sick. Authorities said some 35 passengers and employees of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority were isolated at the site with symptoms of nausea, headache and dry throat. All were being decontaminated there, authorities said.

Officers said the man also dropped a jar of clear liquid, wich spilled on the train and the subway platform.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, whose aides were monitoring the developments in a bioterrorism situation room, said the situation was still unfolding but that the substance released appeared to be perfume.

"We haven't done the analysis yet," Thompson cautioned. "It appears right now that it looks like perfume."

Authorities on the scene told reporters the symptoms were consistent with those suffered by people exposed to the kind of pepper spray that Metro transit officers used on the suspect.

Metro spokesman Ray Feldmann said that approximately 11:15 a.m. EDT, a man entered the Southern Avenue station on Metro's Green Line and had an altercation with an officer over the man's refusal to pay his fare.

This happened, he said, when an officer found the man sitting on the train. When the man was asked to furnish an identification, he said, the man pulled a plastic pump spray bottle from underneath his coat and began spraying it into the air.

The man mumbled something in a language that the officer did not understand, Feldmann said.

A second officer arrived, and as officers sought to arrested him, the man pulled out a handgun and fired one round, Feldmann said. No one was struck, he said.

Feldmann also said that officers recovered a steak knife and a religious document, "either a Bible or a Koran."

The suspect, whom police did not identify, was handcuffed and in custody, and was being detained at the scene, authorities said.

Because authorities weren't certain as to what made the passengers and employees sick, it was decided that they should be decontaminated at the scene, rather than at nearby hospitals, authorities said.