Thursday February 8 7:51 AM ET
Man Shot Near White House in 'Serious Condition'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities were weighing charges on Thursday against a 47-year-old accountant from Evansville, Indiana, who police said fired several shots outside the White House, touching off a massive security alert before he was shot by a Secret Service officer and subdued.

The alleged gunman, identified as Robert Pickett, was listed in ``serious condition'' following surgery to remove bullet fragments from his right knee, according to a hospital statement. Pickett was also expected to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Pickett, a fired Internal Revenue Service worker wrote a letter to the agency proclaiming its commissioner ``guilty of murder'' and blaming his emotional problems on his struggle with his former employer.

``My death is on your hands,'' Pickett wrote in a letter dated Feb. 2, according to the report. Pickett said that a federal court in Ohio last week rejected a whistle-blower lawsuit he had filed against the IRS and called himself ``a victim of a corrupt government,'' the Post reported.

Attorney Joseph Yocum, also of Evansville, Indiana, told Reuters that Pickett had been fired from the IRS in the late 1980s and had lost an administrative challenge to get his job back.

Later, Yocum said, Pickett brought a civil suit against the IRS and other federal agencies.

President George W. Bush was in the White House when the midday drama was unfolding on Wednesday outside the fence around the South Lawn, but officials said he was never in danger.

Police described Pickett as possibly suicidal, saying at one point he put the gun inside his mouth.

``(The gunman) was brandishing the firearm. He was waving it in the air. The weapon was pointed at the White House at one point and pointed in all directions,'' Park Police spokesman Rob MacLean said.

``He was possibly suicidal. As to his specific intentions, we don't know that,'' he said.

According to witnesses, police shouted at Pickett: ``Put the gun down! It doesn't have to be this way. Let's talk about it.''

The Secret Service said that after trying in vain to talk Pickett into putting down his weapon, one of its uniformed officers fired a single shot that hit Pickett in the knee and brought him down. Other officers subdued him.

Authorities in Indiana said Pickett did not have a criminal record.

Friends in Indiana described Pickett as ``quiet'' and ''withdrawn'' and ``by no means a violent man.'' But they said he was ``upset with a number of things'' and said he had a grudge against the Internal Revenue Service.

The shooting rekindled the debate over whether Bush should reopen the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue on the northern side of the White House. It was closed in 1995 after the Oklahoma City
bombing raised fears of a similar attack in Washington.

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