POSTED: 5:30 p.m. EDT, April 20, 2007HOUSTON, Texas(CNN) -- NASA evacuated a building at the Johnson Space Center in Houston after an employee with a gun was seen and a shot was fired, a NASA spokesman said Friday.
A SWAT team with the Houston Police has been dispatched to building 44 on the Johnson Space Center property, a source told CNN. Building 44 holds a laboratory.
The man with the gun is white, slim in build, about 5 feet 9 inches, 50 to 52 years old and has blond hair, police said. He is clean shaven, wearing glasses and a blue-grey shirt with grey or blue jeans.
The call for help came in to the Houston Police at 1:40 p.m. (2:40 p.m. ET) but it's unclear who made that call.
NASA spokesman James Hartfield said all of the employees that would have been in that building have been evacuated. (Watch employees being evacuated after gunfire is heard Video)
There is "extremely tight security" at Johnson Space Center, Hartfield said.
A NASA spokesperson told CNN that all employees have been told to go home for the day.
Space Center Intermediate School, less than a mile south of building 44, was locked down, said Karen Permetti, spokeswoman for Clear Creek Independent School District. The lock-down was lifted at about 5 p.m. (ET).
She said the school lets out at 4 p.m. (5 p.m. ET) and parents have been asked not to come to the school to pick up their children.
The school has about 1,200 students, according to the school district.
As standard procedure, Mission Control's doors were locked, The Associated Press reported.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/nasa.gunfire/index.html
