By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON
Joint Base Andrews, which hosts aircraft used by U.S. President Barack Obama, lifted a lockdown Thursday morning after officials said reports of an active shooter situation stemmed from a misunderstanding.
There was no shooter and no threat, the base tweeted, and the active shooter call inside Malcolm Grow Medical Facility was due to a “misidentification of the security forces emergency services team who were conducting a routine inspection of the facility”.
The president last visited the base, located 20 miles from the nation’s capital, Wednesday night after returning from a trip to Ottawa, Canada.
The base was scheduled to conduct a "no-notice" active shooter exercise, but a call of a real world shooter prompted the emergency response.
"Reports of a real-world active shooter situation at the medical facility were miscommunicated before the exercise was able to begin," Joint Base Andrews said.
The incident had prompted the base to order all personnel to shelter in place.
The lockdown was lifted at roughly 10.30 a.m. (1430 GMT), about an hour and a half after it went into effect.
