No charges in deadly NSA spy agency shooting in Maryland: officials

By John Clarke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - No charges will be filed in the deadly March shooting outside the National Security Agency where officers fired on a vehicle carrying two men dressed as women that crashed into the spy agency's gates, federal officials said on Wednesday.

No crime was committed by either the officers or the vehicle's surviving passenger during the incident at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 20 miles northeast of Washington, D.C., on March 30, U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

Officials have closed the case in which driver Ricky Hall, 27, slammed a stolen vehicle into security gates outside the spy agency.

Law enforcement officers shot at the vehicle, killing Hall and wounding the passenger, whose identity was not released. Both Hall and the passenger were from Baltimore.

Video of the incident shows Hall ignored directions given by guards, rammed a barrier at high speed, and was racing toward the officer who fired at the vehicle, Rosenstein said.

Hall had a lengthy criminal record including a robbery conviction and charges of violating probation, according to Maryland court records.

The FBI has said the agency did not believe the incident was related to terrorism and the men were not dressed in disguise.

The one-way entrance to the agency, off the fast-moving Baltimore-Washington Parkway, is notorious for confusing area drivers who sometimes mistake it for a highway exit and end up at the heavily guarded security gates, where they are immediately detained for a security check.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Lisa Lambert)