Washington Navy Yard shooting leaves 13 dead, gunman identified

PanARMENIAN.Net - A former Navy reservist killed 12 people on Monday, Sept 16, 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, the New York Times reported.

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 am 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.

Police officers who swarmed the military facility exchanged fire with Alexis, 34, a former naval reservist in Fort Worth. Police officers shot 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 Alexis was able to drive a rental car onto the base using his access as a contractor and shot an officer and one other person outside Building 197, the Sea Systems Command headquarters. Inside, 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.

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.

Three weapons were found on 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 Alexis on the F.B.I. website. The agency is treating the shooting as a criminal investigation, not one related to terrorism.

It was the worst attack at a U.S. military installation since U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan opened fire on unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 31 others. Hasan, who said he acted in retaliation for U.S. wars in Muslim countries, was convicted and sentenced to death by a military jury in August.

Navy officials said late Monday that Alexis had worked as a contractor in information technology. A spokesman for Hewlett-Packard said Alexis had been an employee of a company called The Experts, a subcontractor on an HP Enterprise Services contract.

Navy officials said Alexis was given a general discharge in 2011 after exhibiting a “pattern of misbehavior,” which officials declined to detail.

The year before, 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 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.”

"We are confronting yet another mass shooting, and today it happened at another military installation, in our nation's capital," said U.S. President Barack Obama, who vowed to enact "sensible" gun control measures after a gunman shot dead 20 school children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut in December.