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MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Shots Near Capitol Hill

Interview

Date: Oct. 3, 2013
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Government Operations

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MATTHEWS: U.S. Congressman Jared Polis was in his office on Capitol Hill when the shots were fired. Congressman, thank you for joining us for this unusual horror to talk about. What did you see? What did you hear?

REP. JARED POLIS (D), COLORADO: You know, Chris, it was a -- it`s a tough day. I mean, here we are, you know, in the government shutdown, just waiting to schedule a vote to reopen it. Alarm bells went off. There`s an emergency intercom system in the Capitol. It said we were going into lockdown. We were instructed to lock our office doors.

Luckily, our staff was accounted for. There were a couple people, constituents from Colorado, meeting with us at that time. They were locked in with us. And we were on lockdown for about half an hour, not knowing what was going on or whether there was a live shooter here at the Capitol.

MATTHEWS: Anyway, are you confident we have a Capitol right now that`s able to handle emergency situations like this? Are the employees -- there`s 12,000 of them up there, I believe up, at the minimum, able to get out of these buildings in any tricky situation like this if they have to evacuate, or would they get stuck in there?

POLIS: Well, you know, the protocol when there`s a shooter -- and that was again what we thought at the time, or somebody who was trying to do harm -- is for us to be secure in our building. So that`s a different protocol than there would be for an evacuation or a bomb threat. So there are different safety protocols for different kinds of threats. We have chemical hoods available for ourselves and our staff, breathing masks.

Again, you know, clearly our institutions of government are always a target for this sort of thing. There is a lot of security. But depending on what the threat is, there`s different protocols.

MATTHEWS: Yes, well, thank you, sir, very much for joining us. Congressman Jared Polis. By the way, a former -- or a current member of Congress who understands the administration of the Capitol, called me just about an hour ago and said this whole exercise showed him how dangerous it is on the other end, getting the young staffers out of building, if we have to.

Anyway, thank you, Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado.

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