I got to go the Smithsonian’s National Zoo today for work. Here’s an update on Monday’s shooting across the street with eyewitness accounts of that “crazy” day.

But more importantly, I saw no fewer than three pandas.

My latest for The Washington Post, today on B1 and continued on B4 with a tease on A1.

Thanks to Peter Hermann for leading my and Harrison Misiko’s reporting, and to editor Chris Jenkins for deciding to put me on the Metro to report on this story in the first place.

Struggling to piece together chaos at the zoo
BY PETER HERMANN, ZACH C. COHEN AND HARRY MISIKO
The Washington Post
April 23, 2014

Shortly past 5 p.m. Monday, the main entrance to the National Zoo teemed with people enjoying one of the attraction’s busiest days of the year. Tourists and mothers pushing baby carriages jostled for position as other visitors, enjoying the annual family day at the zoo, poured onto Connecticut Avenue.

Just then, a large crowd of men and women arrived at the zoo’s entrance. That came as authorities inside were in the process of expelling about three dozen disruptive youngsters from near the elephant exhibit. All of a sudden, hundreds of people milled about at the zoo’s entrance.

Then, at 5:17, someone pulled a gun and fired several shots. Once again — just like in 2000, when seven people were shot, and again in 2011, when a young boy was stabbed — an Easter Monday at the zoo became a day of terror and chaos for out-of-towners and native Washingtonians alike…read more…