A Florida sheriff said there were “no signs of an active shooter” and no injuries after police responded to a report of gunshots at the Corry Station, a Navy installation in Pensacola.
Law enforcement authorities and military personnel said they had cleared the facility to reopen after conducting a thorough sweep of the facility, according to a post on the Naval Air Station Pensacola's social media accounts at about 1:15 p.m. Thursday.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said someone reported hearing multiple gunshots about 10:15 a.m., but deputies conducted a search and found no evidence of a shooting and no victims. All available deputies responded to Corry Station sub-installation in response and worked with military personnel to search the station, authorities said.
The base and Naval Air Station Pensacola had closed entrances as police investigated. Officers continued to conduct a comprehensive sweep of the base for almost two hours before clearing the threat.
Corry Station is a sub-installation of the larger Naval Air Station Pensacola command. The station houses several units including the Navy’s Center for Information Warfare Training as well as civilian and Marine operations. The Navy’s website for the installation notes the gates are open 24 hours a day, but require credentials or accompaniment of credentialed individuals to enter.
Naval Air Station information specialists posted on the station’s X and Facebook accounts that the gates to Corry Station remained closed just before 12:30 p.m., but other entrances to the larger station had begun reopening.
NAS Pensacola had a previous shooting incident in December 2019 in which a Saudi student at the air station opened fire in a classroom, killing three sailors and wounding eight other people including two sheriff's deputies. One of the deputies killed the shooter, Mohammed Alshamrani, in that incident.
After the shooting the first Trump administration sent 21 Saudi military students home, noting they had jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media pages or had contact with child sexual abuse materials, including in internet chat rooms, officials said in early 2020. None of those trainees was accused of having had advance knowledge of the shooting or helped the 21-year-old gunman carry it out.
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