WASHINGTON, July 25 -- Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, gives two slain Capitol Hill policemen full credit for saving his life and the lives of 25 others who were in his offices when a gunman burst through the door Friday afternoon. An emotional DeLay told reporters today that he felt a personal responsibility to look after the widows and children of officers John Gibson, 42, and Jacob Chestnut, 58. Russell Weston, a 41-year-old Montana resident with a history of mental illness, was charged with their slayings today. At about 3:40 p.m. Friday, DeLay and his staffers had just returned from the House floor after a vote. Tony Rudy, DeLay's policy director, heard a noise that sounded 'like a metal tray being slammed down again and again.' A few seconds later, he said, the back door of DeLay's office banged open, 'and I heard gunfire right in the office, pop, pop, pop. Everyone was yelling, get down, get out of here, he's got a gun.' Weston ran into the office -- actually a maze of small offices and hallways -- either chasing or following a panicked woman, whom DeLay's staffers identified as a French tourist. Seconds earlier, he had allegedly shot Chestnut with a revolver, and ducked downthe hallway leading to DeLay's offices to get away from another officer, who was firing at him. He ran through the door and right past Gibson, the plainclothes officer assigned to DeLay's security detail. Rudy said he was told that Gibson pushed the woman to the floor and ordered another staffer to take cover under a desk.
Weston apparently turned, and he and Gibson fired at each other. Each fell, critically wounded, a few feet from each other, with the French tourist between them. Rudy came out of his office and saw both men bleeding on the floor. An officer from the Capitol's bicycle police force was straddling Weston, who had dropped his gun on a nearby desk. Rudy said the officer: 'was pointing a gun at (Weston's) head, screaming at him to roll over.. .(Weston) was stunned or unconscious. He just lay there moaning. So (the officer) hooked him by the belt and flipped him on his back.' DeLay came out of his private office when he heard the shots. A staffer pushed him back, and they and a tourist locked themselves in a bathroom until the shooting stopped. DeLay said: 'If I had stayed on the House floor just 15 minutes later, John (Gibson) wouldn't have been sitting there (when Weston entered the office), and I don't know what would have happened to my staff.' He called Gibson, who traveled with him on all his official business inside and away from the Capitol, 'simply the finest man I have ever known.' He spent time with both officers' families today and said the public, 'ought to feel good that there are still Americans who are still willing to lay down their lives for others.' The Capitol Police have established a memorial fund for the officers' families. Gibson is survived by his wife, Evelyn, and three children. Chestnut and his wife, Wendy, had five children. ---
Copyright 1998 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ---
