A Jefferson City SWAT officer prepares to enter the Governor’s Office Building

UPDATE 2:00 p.m.:

It’s officially over.

The office building that was the site of an extraordinary law enforcement response has been cleared. Officials said whatever might have led them to respond with SWAT teams, a helicopter and snipers has ended.

Officials declined any further comment, saying only that they have scheduled a press conference for 4 p.m.

UPDATE 1:30 p.m :

Capt. Tim Hull, of the highway patrol, said officials had no verification that any hostage is involved.

He said a woman in the building thought she heard the word “hostage” over an intercom. She called the building’s security company, which contacted police. Authorities locked the building down and continue to investigate.

Said Capt. Mike Smith of the Jefferson City Police Department: “It has every potential to be a false alarm.” An unconfirmed report being circulated on Twitter said police had found the woman who called in the initial alarm.

SWAT teams in fatigues have entered the building.

Gov. Jay Nixon was in Texas at the time of the incident, according to a spokesman. He returned to Jefferson City immediately and is in his Capitol office monitoring the situation.

A staffer for the Public Service Commission said the commission has talked to its employees on floors one through nine and none knew of a hostage situation. The PSC floors are all locked and accessible only with a Sonitrol key card.

Part of the PSC’s telecommunications staff is housed on the fifth floor, the reported site of the problem.

“We’ve contacted one staff member on all floors and have no reports of any unusual activity other than the police” being there, said the staffer, Mark Hughes. “It doesn’t mean something hasn’t taken place,” he added.

Hughes said he had also talked to someone on the 10th floor, which houses the Missouri Development Finance Board, and no hostage situation was reported there.

Hughes said all five utility commissioners are safe.

“I have seen four of them. The fifth is with his daughter at a doctor’s appointment,” Hughes said.

EARLIER STORY:

JEFFERSON CITY - City police, state Highway Patrol officers and Cole County Sheriff’s deputies, some armed with assault rifles, have surrounded an office building at 200 Madison St. across from the Governor’s Mansion here.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder told the Post-Dispatch that SWAT teams and sharpshooters responded to what some were calling a hostage situation. He said he had no information about unconfirmed reports that shots had been fired.

Lewis Mills, of the state’s Office of Public Counsel, said at about 10:15 a.m, an intercom message told everyone in the building, at the corner of Capitol Avenue and Madison Street, to stay in their offices. “We heard that there is a hostage situation on the fifth floor,” he said. “The whole area is crawling with police.”

Kinder said he had been watching the drama unfold from his second-floor Capitol office window beginning at about 10:20 a.m.

He watched a chopper, highway patrol troopers, Jefferson City police and a firetruck arrive. He also could see sharpshooters on the roof of the Jefferson State Office Building nearby.

Kinder said the husband of one of his employees is a trained hostage negotiator on the Capitol Police force and had been called in at about 10:30 a.m. to help.

“It looked like the police and all the first responders were doing a splendid job of dealing with what might be a ghastly situation,” Kinder said.

The entire fifth floor of the privately owned building, called the Governor Office Building, is used by the state Public Service Commission, which regulates investor-owned electric, steam, natural gas, water and sewer and telephone companies. The building was the site of the former Governor Hotel, which is how it got its name.

The building also houses private attorneys, a cafe, the state School Boards Association and some state Attorney General’s Office employees.

Inside the building, Kevin Kelly, the PSC public information administrator, said employees were not told what was going on, only that they could not leave.

“I can tell you at this point we have been asked to stay in our offices,” Kelly said. “The building is under lockdown and the police are in our building.”

Helicopters circled over the building. Traffic through much of downtown Jefferson City is being blocked off as officers continue to patrol the area. Workers in the building in question, which has been locked down, could be seen looking out of office windows. At least one other building in the immediate area was also locked down as a precaution, authorities said.

Officials said the governor was not in the mansion at the time. Police said more details would be released soon.