Aaron Alexis in Fort Worth, Texas. He is the suspect in the murder of 15 people at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
September 16, 2013
Gunman and 12 Victims Killed in Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
New York Times
WASHINGTON — A former Navy reservist killed at least 12 people on Monday in a mass shooting at a secure military facility that led the authorities to lock down part of the nation’s capital — even after the gunman was killed — in a hunt for two other armed men spotted by video cameras, officials said.
But by Monday evening, the federal authorities said they believed the shooting was the act of a lone gunman, identified as Aaron Alexis, 34, who was working for a military subcontractor.
The chaos at the facility, the Washington Navy Yard, started just after 8 a.m. Civilian employees described a scene of confusion as shots erupted through the hallways of the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, on the banks of the Anacostia River a few miles from the White House and about a half-mile from the Capitol.
“I heard three gunshots, pow, pow, pow, straight in a row,” said Patricia Ward, a logistics management specialist from Woodbridge, Va., who was in the cafeteria on the first floor when the shooting started. “About three seconds later, there were four more gunshots, and all of the people in the cafeteria were panicking, trying to figure out which way we were going to run out.”
Police officers who swarmed the military facility exchanged fire with Mr. Alexis, 34, a former naval reservist in Fort Worth. Police officers shot Mr. Alexis to death, law enforcement officials said, but not before a dozen people were killed and several others, including a city police officer, were wounded and taken to local hospitals.
Officials said Mr. Alexis drove a rental car to the base and entered using his access as a contractor and shot an officer and one other person outside Building 197, the Sea Systems Command headquarters. Inside, Mr. Alexis made his way to a floor overlooking an atrium and took aim at employees eating breakfast below.
“He was shooting down from above the people,” one law enforcement official said. “That is where he does most of his damage.”
The names of seven of the victims were released late Monday: Michael Arnold, 59; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathy Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Frank Kohler, 50; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46; and Vishnu Pandit, 61. Officials said names of the other victims would be released after their families had been contacted. All of the victims were believed to be civilians or contractors. No active duty military personnel were killed, said Chief Cathy L. Lanier of Washington.
One victim was shot in the left temple and was pronounced dead within a minute of arriving at George Washington University Hospital. “This injury was not survivable by any stretch,” a hospital official told reporters. “The patient was dead on the way to the hospital.”
Eight people were injured. Three of them were shot, including Officer Scott Williams of the Washington police. The others suffered injuries from falls or complained of chest pains. Officer Williams, who served in the canine unit, underwent several hours of surgery for gunshot wounds to his legs. A second victim suffered a gunshot wound to her shoulder. A bullet grazed a third victim’s head but did not penetrate her skull, according to doctors at MedStar Washington Hospital Center.
Three weapons were found on Mr. Alexis: an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol, a senior law enforcement officer said. It was unclear whether he had brought all the guns with him, another law enforcement official said, or if he had taken one or more of them from his victims.
Officials said they were still searching for a motive as they asked the public for help by posting pictures of Mr. Alexis on the F.B.I. Web site. The agency is treating the shooting as a criminal investigation, not one related to terrorism.
Navy officials said late Monday that Mr. Alexis had worked as a contractor in information technology. A spokesman for Hewlett-Packard said Mr. Alexis had been an employee of a company called The Experts, a subcontractor on an HP Enterprise Services contract.
Navy officials said Mr. Alexis was given a general discharge in 2011 after exhibiting a “pattern of misbehavior,” which officials declined to detail. The year before, Mr. Alexis was arrested in Fort Worth for discharging a firearm after an upstairs neighbor said he had confronted her in the parking lot about making too much noise, according to a Fort Worth police report.
The police in Seattle, where Mr. Alexis once lived, said Monday that they had arrested him in 2004 for shooting the tires of another man’s vehicle in what Mr. Alexis later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.”
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Congressional delegate from the District of Columbia, called the episode “an attack on our city.”
“It’s an attack on our country,” she added.
Mayor Vincent C. Gray called it a “long, tragic day.” President Obama praised the victims of the shooting as patriots.
The tension in the city was heightened for much of the day as the police said they were unsure whether Mr. Alexis had acted alone. Officials said surveillance video of people fleeing the scene of the shooting showed two armed men dressed in different military uniforms and wielding guns. For hours, the police said they believed that there might have been three gunmen and that two of them were on the loose in the city.
The reports of multiple suspects generated confusion across Washington as the authorities offered conflicting messages about any continuing danger. Officials did not move to secure the city, leaving the city’s subway system to operate normally. But out of an “abundance of caution,” Terrance W. Gainer, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, put the Senate complex into lockdown after 3 p.m. The Senate had recessed in the early afternoon.
Around the same time, the Washington Nationals postponed a game against the division-leading Atlanta Braves, which had been scheduled for 7 p.m. at Nationals Park, next to the navy yard. The Nationals’ Web site said “Postponed: Tragedy” and notified fans that the teams would play a doubleheader on Tuesday instead.
The city was further shaken Monday evening when someone tossed firecrackers over the fence at the White House, causing loud bangs and prompting a swift and aggressive response from Secret Service agents, who tackled a man in white shorts and a T-shirt on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The morning was drizzly at the navy yard, which sits at one end of the 11th Street Bridge, a major thoroughfare bringing traffic into the city from Maryland.
Within minutes of the first reports of shots, hundreds of police officers and naval officers surrounded the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, where about 3,000 service members, civilians and contractors work on the Navy’s fleet. Military helicopters circled the facility as police vehicles and other emergency vehicles rushed to the scene. A helicopter lowered a basket to the roof of one of the buildings and appeared to be taking away victims.
The navy yard is protected by a high wall, but someone with official access could have driven a car into the parking lot without having the trunk inspected.
Navy yard employees evacuated from the building described a chaotic situation as an individual armed with a rifle roamed the hallways shooting at people.
Cmdr. Tim Jirus said he was on the fourth floor when he heard gunshots and saw people start running through the office. The commander said he was at the back of the building when a man approached him, asking about the shooting. Moments later, the man was shot in the head.
“We had a conversation for about a minute,” Commander Jirus said.
Asked how he escaped when the man next to him was shot, he said: “Luck. Grace of God. Whatever you want to call it.”
Reporting was contributed by Abby Goodnough, Emmarie Huetteman, Thom Shanker, Sarah Maslin Nir and Joseph Goldstein from Washington, and William K. Rashbaum from New York.
Navy Yard shooter 'had a pattern of misconduct'
By Richard Simon, David S. Cloud and Brian Bennett
September 16, 2013, 2:56 p.m.
Los Angeles
WASHINGTON — The 34-year-old former Navy electrician’s mate identified as the gunman who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard had been discharged from the service in 2011 after multiple disciplinary infractions, a Navy officer said Monday.
Aaron Alexis “had a pattern of misconduct,” the official said.
Law enforcement officials have identified Alexis as the shooter who went on a two-hour rampage at the sprawling naval base in Washington, but have not yet said what they believe was his motive.
Alexis, a native of New York, who served in the Navy from 2007 to 2011 as an aviation electrician’s mate 3rd class, entered the base early Monday morning, authorities said, perhaps using another man’s identification card to pass through the gates.
Once inside, officials said, he headed for the massive Building 197, the headquarters of the Navy Sea Systems Command. Armed with three weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle, he went to the building’s fourth floor, according to officials. About 8:15 a.m., according to witness accounts and police dispatch recordings, the gunman began shooting down into a crowded atrium that houses an employee cafeteria.
Washington police and Navy security officials engaged in “multiple” exchanges of fire with Alexis over the next two hours, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier told reporters, eventually shooting and killing him.
In addition to the 12 people killed, three others were treated at a hospital, with two requiring surgery. All three are expected to recover, hospital officials said. Officials said other people may have suffered injuries that did not require hospitalization.
From 2008 until his discharge in 2011, Alexis was a member of an aviation support squadron based in Fort Worth, Texas, where he worked on C-40s, a military version of the Boeing 737 that the Navy uses as a cargo plane. Law enforcement officials said that he was more recently working as a military contractor.
On Sept. 5, 2010, he was arrested in Fort Worth on suspicion of discharging a weapon. Alexis reportedly told officials that the gun had discharged accidentally when he was cleaning it. The Tarrant County district attorney did not prosecute.
Earlier Monday, Lanier had said that investigators were seeking two other men. One, a white man dressed in military-style clothing who had reportedly been seen with a handgun in the vicinity of the shooting on the base, was cleared in mid-afternoon.
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said the police department still wanted to speak to a second man who some witnesses had reported seeing, a black man in his 50s dressed in olive fatigues. But he played down the possibility that the man was involved in the shooting.
“We don’t know that there is a second gunman on the loose,” Gray said at a news conference, adding that police wanted to talk to the man.
Gray also repeated earlier statements that police had no evidence linking the attack to terrorism.
About 3:30 p.m., officials began to allow people to leave the base, which had been on lockdown.
President Obama, speaking at the White House, praised the victims as “patriots” who “know the dangers of serving abroad” but faced “unimaginable violence they wouldn’t have expected at home.” He promised that federal and local law enforcement officials would work together to investigate.
Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief operating officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, reported three shooting victims at the hospital but added that they expected to admit more victims.
"From the reports of the victims, it had to be a semiautomatic," she said. "They’re talking about gunshots that they heard in rapid succession."
One woman admitted to the hospital had a gunshot wound to the head and her hand, Orlowski said. Another woman had a wound to her shoulder, Orlowski said, and a D.C. police officer had multiple gunshot wounds to his legs.
The three were in critical condition, she said, but she described their chances for survival as good.
The incident began at about 8:15 a.m. at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command at the sprawling naval base on Washington’s Anacostia River waterfront.
Patricia Ward, a logistics management specialist, was in Building 197 when the shooting started. She told reporters she was in the lobby using the ATM when she heard three shots and started "panicking." Then she heard four more shots. A security guard with a gun drawn told people to run, she said, and "I just ran. I thought of my family and I just ran." Someone pulled the fire alarm.
Roughly two hours later, witnesses reported hearing more shots.
A federal law enforcement official monitoring the situation said that conflicting reports of more than one gunman came from a situation where a “second building” was being checked for reports of shots fired.
Officials ramped up security in all federal buildings in the Washington area. As a precaution, U.S. Capitol Police added personnel and increased security measures in the Capitol Building.
As helicopters hovered above the base, first lowering stretchers to airlift victims to hospitals and later circling the base in an apparent search effort, air traffic was briefly grounded at the nearby Reagan National Airport. Several area schools were put on lockdown.
About 3,000 people, both civilian and military, work at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters.
Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez said he was in an adjoining Navy Yard building when the shooting started.
“Everybody rushed in” to the building where he was, and security guards locked down the facility. “It was pretty orderly,” he said.
Authorities identify seven of the 12 people killed in Navy Yard shooting
By Carol Morello, Peter Hermann and Clarence Williams, Published: September 16
Thirteen people are dead and at least eight others were injured after a gunman opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, officials said, spreading fear and chaos across the region as authorities sought to contain the panic.
The incident, in which the death toll rose almost hourly, represents the single worst loss of life in the District since an airliner plunged into the Potomac River in 1982, killing 78.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and Mayor Vincent C. Gray announced the mounting number of casualties in a series of news conferences. The suspected shooter, identified by the FBI as Aaron Alexis, 34, living in Fort Worth, is among the dead. Alexis was a military contractor, one official said.
Hours after the rampage began it remained unclear whether the shooting was the act of a lone gunman, or if other shooters were involved. Lanier initially said authorities were looking for two more potential shooters dressed in military style clothing. Shortly after she announced a detailed description of two suspects, city officials said one had been located and cleared. And at a 10 p.m. news conference she said police were comfortable the shooting had been committed by one person.
Police are asking anyone with information on the suspect to call 202-727-9099.
Lanier lifted the shelter in place order for the neighborhood around the Navy Yard that had been in place for much of the day.
Gray said those killed by the shooter ranged in age from 46-73 years old. He said the families of seven of the victims had been notified. Those victims were identified as: Michael Arnold, 59; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathy Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Frank Kohler, 50; Bernard Proctor, 46; and Vishnu Pandit, 61.
The families of the six other victims were in the process of being notified.
Lanier said one of those killed was a District resident, but she did not identify the person.
Gray said another eight people were injured in the attack. He said three people were shot, including Metropolitan Police Officer Scott Williams. Gray said the officer was doing well.
The other five had either stress related injuries, and at least one was someone who fell.
Vice Adm. Bill French earlier had said that the number of injured was 14.
Gray said no motive is known yet. He said there is no reason to believe it was an act of terrorism, though he added that he could not rule it out.
As of 8:30 p.m. Monday, Navy officials said about 2,000 people remained on base, and that it could take another 3-4 hours before everyone was cleared to leave.
The FBI was still interviewing every person leaving the base out of concern that a second suspect may still be at large, French said. And SWAT teams are still finding people hiding in places on the base, where some had remained hunkered down since the initial attack early Monday morning. One city officials said that shortly before 7 p.m., officers found an employee hiding in a locker, where the employee had been for nearly 11 hours.
Throughout the day, people had been warned to stay in their homes and offices on the Naval Base as the incident unfolded.
Alexis was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, two law enforcement officials said. One said he also had a shotgun. One official said all the weapons have not been accounted for.
The first, sketchy details about the suspect offered few hints about what may have gone wrong.
Alexis grew up in Brooklyn with his mother, Cathleen, and father, Anthony Alexis, according to his aunt Helen Weeks.
“We haven’t seen him for years,” Weeks said of her nephew in a telephone interview. “I know he was in the military. He served abroad. I think he was doing some kind of computer work.”
Alexis spent nearly four years in the Navy as a full-time reservist from May 2007 until he was discharged in January 2011, according to a summary of his personnel records released by Navy officials at the Pentagon.
The officials said they were still researching whether Alexis had been employed as a defense contractor or a civilian employee of the Navy, and were uncertain if he was assigned to work at the Navy Yard.
He achieved his final rank of Aviation Electrician’s Mate 3rd Class in December 2009. Officials said they did not immediately know the reasons for his discharge.
The carnage began around 8 a.m. when the U.S. Navy said that three shots were fired at Building 197, headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command. About 3,000 people work in the building. As the noise that some thought sounded like construction work continued, the realization set in that a gunman was firing on them.
Rick Mason, a program management analyst who is a civilian with the U.S. Navy, told the Associated Press that a gunman was shooting from a fourth floor overlook in the hallway outside his office. He said the gunman was aiming at people in the building’s first floor cafeteria.
Terry Durham said that as she and co-workers were evacuating, she saw a man down the hall raise a rifle and fire toward them, hitting a wall.
“He didn’t say a word,” said her co-worker, Todd Brundage.
One man who said he was at his desk on the second floor when the shooting began recalled hearing a loud noise “like someone dropping an old metal desk.” The man, who declined to give his name, said there was a pause, then several noises close together and he realized the danger: “There’s a shooter in the building. I started walking toward the door and I heard people running down the hall.”
Employees described the chaos, as a fire alarm sounded and people shouted, “Where is he? Where is he?”
Gregory Dade, a Navy contractor, said he and a co-worker locked themselves in a second floor office of Building 197 as soon as the shooting went on, in fits and stops. Dade, called it “terrifying.”
He heard a woman scream, glass crashing and a series of gun shots. Then he heard shouting: “Get down! Get down! This is the police.”
Finally, about 11 a.m., he and a co-worker made a break for it.
At an exit, they noticed a trail of blood running to the next building.
Tim Jirus, a Navy commander who works in Building 197, said that as he was evacuating the building he saw a co-worker who had been shot getting into a police car, and heard more shots fired from inside his workplace.
A far worse sight lay just ahead. Jirus went to an alley where he thought he would be safe, and talked briefly with a man there about what was going on. Jirus said he heard two gunshots, loudly echoing off the building. It caused him to spin around to look for the source of the noise. But when he turned back, he looked down and saw the man he had been conversing with lying on the ground, shot in the head.
Uncertain where the shooter was, he ran.
“I was just lucky,” he said. “The other person was shorter than me. There were two shots, he got that guy, he didn’t get me. . . . The randomness of it — standing right next to me, one person gets shot.”
At least two police officers were among those shot. Lanier said the D.C. officer worked in the K-9 unit and has been on the force 23 years. She said she has known and worked closely with him for "many, many years."
"He's got a stellar record," she said.
"He's got a pretty serious injury, but right now his family is here with him and he's in good spirits," Lanier added. "He's just very grateful for all the other responders who helped get him out of that building and get the medical attention he needed."
The other was said to be a base officer. Earlier in the say officials at MedStar Washington Hospital Center said his chances for survival were good.
Janis Orlowski, the chief medical officer at Washington Hospital Center, said three victims in all were brought to the center, all in critical condition but alert, responsive and able to talk with doctors. The victims were also able to speak briefly to law enforcement officers before undergoing surgery or treatment, she said.
The other two victims at the hospital were female civilians, Orlowski said at a news conference. All are likely to survive.
The impact of the incident rippled across town, forces schools, offices and homes into an enforced lockdown.
Senate buildings on Capitol Hill went on lockdown at about 3 p.m., with no one allowed to enter or leave the building, though it was partially lifted toward the end of the day to allow staffers to go home.
The Nationals, whose ballpark is near the Navy Yard, postponed a Monday night game. Instead, they will play a double header Tuesday at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Ten public and charter schools and a public school administration building in the District went on lockdown, and flights out of Reagan National Airport were briefly halted, causing delays even after they began departing again.
Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of Naval Operations, was evacuated from his residence at the Navy Yard complex shortly after the first report of shots fired, Navy officials said.
Greenert, a four-star admiral and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was safely evacuated to the Pentagon along with his wife, Darleen, said Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman.
Police closed the 11th Street Bridge as well as M Street SE between Second and Fourth streets SE because of the shooting. Entrances to the Navy Yard Metro station remain open.
As helicopters circled overhead and emergency vehicles continued to rush to the scene, crowds of onlookers gathered on sidewalks and at a construction site near the Navy Yard, but police pushed them back, yelling at them to keep a distance from the grounds.
President Obama on Monday expressed sympathy for the victims of the shooting and said justice must be sought.
“I’ve made it clear to my team that we want the investigation to be seamless, so that local and federal authorities are working together,” he said.
As a long day drew to a close, weary and stunned Navy personnel filtered into Capitol Hill in their tan uniforms, blue camouflage fatigues and civilian clothes, many of them saying little, just wanting to get home after a day spent running or hiding, and then waiting.
Tom Dick-Peddie, 46, was at work in another building in the Navy Yard and said they were on lockdown for about an hour and a half, then they were evacuated to another building. Shortly after 3 p.m. they were allowed to leave.
Kate O’Neill of Arlington and Stephanie Cates-Harman of Columbia, who work in the office of the general counsel, said their office had been ordered to shelter in place until 2 p.m. While some people were very upset, and others were calm, and tried to contact relatives to assure them that they were okay.
“Texts were going fast and furious,” O’Neill said.
Under Secretary for the Navy, Juan Garcia, said Navy Yard would reopen tomorrow for essential personnel only. Most employees would be encouraged to telecommute. Garcia said it was unclear who the base would reopen in its entirety.
Garcia said the Navy has set up a counseling line for anyone struggling to cope with Monday's attack. That number is 1-800-222-0364.
Both Gray and Lanier said the streets around the Navy Yard would be opened by about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
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