CET and I live in Ottawa.

I missed getting caught in the lock-down of the Rideau Centre, a few hundred metres from the National War Memorial, by being too damned lazy to go to the gym at my usual time, 9:45 a.m. My sister-in-law called from work just after 11:00 a.m. to tell me what was going on and ask after my brother Andrew (not her husband) because Andrew works on Parliament Hill. That was the first I heard of the still-unfolding events.

Mr Vickers, the Sergeant-at-Arms, is no mere "ceremonial" personage, despite his cocked hat and Geneva bands; he is actually the commanding officer of the Parliamentary security force. He left the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at the high rank of superintendant to take the post, after a long career that included significant service in close protection as well as major criminal investigations and negotiating the stand-down of the Aboriginal protest over fishing rights at Burnt Church, New Brunswick.

Mr Vickers did not chase down the man with the rifle; he ducked into his office for his pistol and ran to intercept him before he could get into one of the caucus rooms that open off the Hall of Honour. Mr Vickers did not fire the fatal shot -- that came from an RCMP weapon -- but he did hit the gunman.

As for poor Cpl Cirillo, he was a target of opportunity, like the two CF members mown down in that parking lot in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

Confederation Square and Wellington Street were still closed to traffic this morning. The CBC is doing all platitudes all the time, on radio, TV and Internet. All security people are twitchy today: when a man crossed the yellow crime-scene tape to approach the National War Memorial this morning as the Prime Minister was laying a wreath, the cops took him down like Dobermans on a dropped sausage.