• 2013...Democrat kills 12 at Navy shipyard

    From Gun Control@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 16 00:39:31 2018
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    Gunman and 12 Victims Killed in Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard

    By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTSEPT. 16, 2013

    See how this article appeared when it was originally published
    on NYTimes.com

    https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/us/shooti ng-reported-at-washington-navy-yard.html

    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.”

    Correction: September 19, 2013
    An article on Tuesday about the mass shooting at the Washington
    Navy Yard, using information from law enforcement authorities,
    misstated, in some copies, the circumstances under which the
    gunman, Aaron Alexis, entered the facility before the shooting
    began. He used his valid credentials as a military contractor to
    get into the base. He did not “shoot his way in.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/us/shooting-reported-at- washington-navy-yard.html
     

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