Coast Guard Exercise-secure zone on Potomac River causes panic

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Panic on the Potomac

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sourced by Amy Judd

President Obama was at an event at the Pentagon commemorating the September 11, 2001 attacks. 

The Coast Guard tried to prevent a boat from entering the Pentagon Security Zone on teh Potomac River, apparently 10 warning shots were fired, although it was not clear from police scanners that they were in fact warning shots.

The incident took place between the Memorial and 14th Street bridges.

It has now been confirmed that this was a training exercise on CNN.  The Coast Guard gave that confirmation quickly.  Apparently local operations centers and the Security Service had not been notified.

CNN heard on the radio that 10 shots had been  fired. No shots were fired. 

This was a bad idea for 9/11.   Someone will have to provide a lot of answers.

Update:

Kira Phillips of CNN has talked to her sources in the Coast Guard and as it turned out, there were no shots fired, not even blanks.  The media heard the keywords, warning shots, etc on the radio scanner and went forward without contacting the Coast Guard.

The reason this was not reported up the channels of communications due to it being a training evolution rather than a major exercise.  As all of it was being conducted by radio the need to report it was deemed unnecessary.

There are a few lessons to be learned from all of this:

1.  Media should confirm that this is in fact the real thing, especially if they can't hear shot fired.

2.  The location for this training could have been moved elsewhere if it had to be done on 9/11.

3.  At the very least, even if it's not necessary to inform the Chain of Command, the media should be consulted.

4.  Even when no shots are fired, blank or life, make sure that the radio traffic is prefixed by Exercise Exercise Exercise.

This incident has a lot of people scrambling now over nothing.

As they say in the army:

Communication Communication Communication