FBI Investigates: Who is Targeting U.S. Military Installations in N. Virginia?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The same gun was used to shoot at the Pentagon and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Northern Virginia earlier this month, the FBI said Tuesday.

A third military office — a Marine Corps recruiting station in Chantilly, Va., outside Washington — was shot at overnight Monday; Marines who work there discovered the shooting Tuesday morning, the FBI said. Investigators are conducting ballistics tests to determine whether the recruiting station shooting is related to the previous incidents.

No one was injured in any of the shootings.

Investigators haven't determined a motive or identified a suspect, said Lindsay Godwin, spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office.

Though all three shootings have targeted offices with links to the military, Godwin said the FBI has not issued any specific advisories or warnings to recruiting stations or other military buildings.

Early on Oct. 19 shots were fired overnight into two windows at the sprawling Defense Department across the Potomac River in suburban Virginia. Two days earlier, bullet holes were discovered in the windows at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Va., 30 miles south of the Pentagon.

Federal investigators were at the recruiting station in Chantilly Tuesday, "trying to link anything they can to what has already been proven," Godwin said.

The FBI declined to identify the type of weapon or ammunition used in the first two shootings in order to avoid compromising its investigation.

Marine Museum officials said that building had been hit by at least 10 rounds. Gwenn Adams, a museum spokeswoman, said last week that officials at the museum, which is associated with the Quantico Marine Base, did not receive any threats or warnings before the shooting.

On the morning of the Pentagon shooting security officers heard five to seven shots about 4:55 near the south parking lot. Bullet fragments were later found lodged in two windows of unoccupied offices on the third and fourth floor.

The civilian Pentagon Force Protection Agency's director, Steven Calvery, said last week that the Pentagon shooting appeared to be "a random event" involving a high-velocity rifle.

On Tuesday, protection agency spokesman Chris Layman said that initial description was preliminary, though officials still don't believe there is a specific threat against the Pentagon.

"We are still trying to pursue as many leads as possible," Layman said, adding that he did not have any details on the type of gun used.

Virginia authorities in Fairfax and Prince William counties, along with the Pentagon police, joined in the investigation.

On the evening of March 4, a Hollister, Calif., man with a history of severe psychiatric problems opened fire at a Pentagon security checkpoint. John Patrick Bedell, 36, wounded two police officers before he was shot by police. Bedell died hours later.