'No evidence' of gunshot at Walter Reed hospital

Military officials locked down the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington and ordered employees to shelter in place Monday after a report of a gunshot, but a search failed to confirm the report, authorities said.

Police in Montgomery County, Md., said they had responded to a report of a shot being fired at the sprawling campus in Bethesda.

"Walter Reed UPDATE: Police operations are complete, there is no evidence of a firearm discharge. Normal operations expected to resume soon," the police tweeted more than three hours after the initial report.

The Navy said the hospital suspended non-emergency medical care for the day. Walter Reed employs about 8,500 people on a 243-acre campus. It serves more than 1 million patients each year, according to the medical center's website.

The police department tweeted that it received a call of a shot being fired at 10:48 a.m. on the campus of the medical center, one of the nation's largest military hospitals.The department sent officers to aid federal agents on the scene "out of an abundance of caution," the department said.

The Navy tweeted more than an hour later that the shooting report remained unconfirmed. Medical center personnel were sheltering in place while the report was being investigated, the Navy said.

Groups of employees were escorted from at least one building for more than an hour at one point, the Navy said

Navy, Defense Department and NIH security personnel were working with the county police, the Navy said.

On Thursday, police and federal officers responded with a massive show of force to a report of a possible shooter at the Washington Navy Yard, about 25 miles from Walter Reed. No evidence of a gunman or a shooting was found.