WHITE HOUSE . . . KNIFE-WIELDING HOMELESS MAN SHOT

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A U.S. Park Police officer shot and wounded a homeless man outside the White House, apparently after the man charged across Pennsylvania Avenue toward the officer with a knife taped to his hand. Witnesses said Marcelino Corniel, who sleeps in Lafayette Park across from the presidential home, stood still in a semicircle of four officers when one of them advanced, and after Corniel lunged, the officer fired twice, wounding him in the chest and right leg. (Corniel was in critical condition late this afternoon.) But the Park Police, who defended the shooting, released a videotape of the confrontation's final moments, basically affirming the accounts of eyewitnesses. A spokesman denied the police were more likely to fire because of two recent shootings at the mansion -- when Francisco Martin Duran allegedly sprayed it with semiautomatic gunfire Oct. 29 and last weekend, when someone apparently fired toward the White House from the nearby Ellipse. "I don't think they were more quick to fire