Active shooter Navy Sea Systems Command DC

[FL-Jeeper]

Yup SF... got that right.... Everything I read says AR AR AR AR (Etc..)... Above is the first I heard that there wasnt one use.

EB

I saw a screenshot from an MSNBC article stating the shooter used an 'AR15 Shotgun'... *smh* mighta been a joke but it sounds about right for MSM freakshow.

Edit: it was CNN, not MSNBC.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE at Millitary.com

Navy Yard Gunman Was Hearing Voices

Sep 17, 2013

Associated Press| by Eric Tucker, Brett Zongker and Lolita C. Baldor

WASHINGTON -- The former Navy reservist who slaughtered 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard had been hearing voices and was being treated for mental problems in the weeks before the shooting rampage, but was not stripped of his security clearance, officials said Tuesday.

Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old information technology employee with a defense contractor, used a valid pass to get into the highly secured installation Monday morning and started firing inside a building, the FBI said. He was killed in a gun battle with police.

The motive for the mass shooting -- the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the attack at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 -- was a mystery, investigators said.

U.S. law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that there was no known connection to international or domestic terrorism and that investigators have found no manifesto or other writings suggesting a political or religious motivation.

Alexis had been suffering a host of serious mental problems, including paranoia and a sleep disorder, and had been hearing voices in his head, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation was still going on.

He had been treated since August by Veterans Affairs for his mental problems, the officials said.

The Navy had not declared him mentally unfit, which would have rescinded a security clearance Alexis had from his earlier time in the Navy Reserves.

The assault is likely to raise more questions about the adequacy of the background checks done on contract employees and others who are issued security clearances -- an issue that came up most recently with National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, an IT employee with a government contractor.

In the hours after the Navy Yard attack, a profile of Alexis began coming into focus.

A Buddhist convert who had also had flare-ups of rage, Alexis, a black man who grew up in New York City and whose last known address was in Fort Worth, Texas, complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination. He also had two run-ins with the law over shootings in 2004 and 2010 in Texas and Seattle.

In addition to those killed at the Navy Yard attack, eight people were hurt, including three who were shot and wounded, authorities. Those three were a police officer and two female civilians, authorities said. They were all expected to survive.

Monday's onslaught at a single building at the Navy Yard unfolded about 8:20 a.m. in the heart of the nation's capital, less than four miles from the White House and two miles from the Capitol. It put all of Washington on edge.

"This is a horrific tragedy," Mayor Vincent Gray said.

Alexis carried three weapons: an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun, and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene, according to two federal law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The AR-15 is the same type of rifle used in last year's mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that killed 20 students and six women. The weapon was also used in the shooting at a Colorado movie theater that killed 12 and wounded 70.

For much of the day Monday, authorities said they were looking for a possible second attacker who may have been disguised in an olive-drab military-style uniform. But by late Monday night, they said they were convinced the shooting was the work of a lone gunman, and the lockdown around the area was eased.

"We do now feel comfortable that we have the single and sole person responsible for the loss of life inside the base today," Washington Police Chief Cathy Lanier said.

President Barack Obama lamented yet another mass shooting in the U.S. that he said took the lives of American "patriots." He promised to make sure "whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible."

The FBI took charge of the investigation.

The attack came four years after Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood in what he said was an effort to save the lives of Muslims overseas. He was convicted last month and sentenced to death.

The dead in the Navy Yard attack ranged in age from 46 to 73, according to the mayor. A number of the victims were civilian employees and contractors, rather than active-duty military personnel, the police chief said.

At the time of the rampage, Alexis was an employee with The Experts, a company that was a Defense Department subcontractor on a Navy-Marine Corps computer project, authorities said.

Valerie Parlave, head of the FBI's field office in Washington, said Alexis had access to the Navy Yard as a defense contractor and used a valid pass.

Alexis had been a full-time Navy reservist from 2007 to early 2011, leaving as a petty officer third class, the Navy said. It did not say why he left. He had been an aviation electrician's mate with a unit in Fort Worth.

The Washington Navy Yard is a sprawling, 41-acre labyrinth of buildings and streets protected by armed guards and metal detectors, and employees have to show their IDs at doors and gates. More than 18,000 people work there.

The rampage took place at Building 197, the headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which buys, builds and maintains ships and submarines. About 3,000 people work at headquarters, many of them civilians.

Witnesses on Monday described a gunman opening fire from a fourth-floor overlook, aiming down on people on the main floor, which includes a glass-walled cafeteria. Others said a gunman fired at them in a third-floor hallway.

Patricia Ward, a logistics-management specialist, said she was in the cafeteria getting breakfast.

"It was three gunshots straight in a row - pop, pop, pop. Three seconds later, it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, so it was like about a total of seven gunshots, and we just started running," Ward said.

-- Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Jesse Holland, Stacy A. Anderson, Brian Witte and Ben Nuckols in Washington contributed to this report.

Sigh....

[The Stig]

Original story HERE at NBC news

Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis was 'not happy with America,' friend says

By Mark Potter and Charles Hadlock, NBC News

FORT WORTH, Texas — Aaron Alexis was so unhappy with his life in America — where he was beset by money woes and felt slighted as a veteran — that he was "ready to move out of the country" last year, a friend said Tuesday.

Aaron Alexis, the man police say shot and killed 12 people in a Washington Navy Yard, reportedly called police to complain about people following him and that he was hearing voices. He sought mental health treatment from a nearby VA hospital, officials said. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

"He was tired of dealing with the government," said Kristi Suthamtewkal, whose husband owns the Thai Bowl Restaurant in Fort Worth, where Alexis worked in exchange for room and board.

But instead of leaving the U.S., the former Navy reservist relocated from Texas to Virginia, where an IT company called The Experts put him on a government contract at the Washington Navy Yard.

A day after Alexis, 34, gunned down 12 people at the yard, new details emerged of his troubled past — from his preoccupation with 9/11 to recent mental problems that included hearing voices in his head.

Investigators said Tuesday that a preliminary probe has turned up no evidence that Alexis participated in rescue operations at Ground Zero, as his father once told police.

He was, however, employed as a clerical worker at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, in the shadow of the Twin Towers, when they were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“He talked about 9/11 and where he was and how the buildings had collapsed and he couldn’t believe that...and how he was upset with the terrorists for taking innocent lives," Suthamtewkal said.

Kristi Suthamtewakul via Reuters

Aaron Alexis in an undated photograph provided by Kristi Suthamtewakul, wife of "Happy Bowl" Thai restaurant owner Nutpisit Suthamtewakul.

Melinda Downs, who took in Alexis after he moved out of the Suthamtewkals' house last year, said he told her he suffered from post-traumatic stress after "surviving 9/11 in New York."

And when Alexis was arrested in Seattle in 2004, for shooting at a parked car in what he called an "anger-fueled blackout," he brought up 9/11 during his interrogation and "how those events had disturbed him," police said.

Three years after that arrest, Alexis enlisted in the Navy Reserves and served as an aviation electrician's mate — a third-class petty officer — before he was given an honorable discharge in January 2011.

Military officials acknowledged that Alexis had disciplinary issues including absence without permission, insubordination and disorderly conduct.

Among the problems: an arrest in September 2010 by Fort Worth police after he accidentally fired a bullet into the apartment above him while he was cleaning a gun with slippery hands. Prosecutors determined that there wasn’t enough evidence to bring a recklessness case.

After his discharge, Alexis began an online course in aeronautics with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He worshiped at a Buddhist Temple and was befriended by Suthamtewkal's husband, Oui, who " took him under his wing and took care of him."

He was given a room at their house in exchange for help at the restaurant, where he was one of the more popular waiters.

"Everybody loved him," Kristi Suthamtewkal said.

He spent a lot of time in his room, burning incense, she said. Michael Ritrobato, a handyman at the restaurant, said Alexis played violent online video games but was good-natured, not angry.

After he returned from a contract job in Japan in Nov. 2012, he didn't seem as easy-going, though.

He felt like he had been cheated out of money from the contract and complained that he was mistreated because he was black, Kristi Suthamtewkal said.

"He felt a lot of discrimination and and racism with white people especially," she said.

There was also a growing sense of entitlement and disrespect, she said. "He did have the tendency to feel like people owed him something all the time."

He got annoyed when she couldn't give him rides, and he started eating the couple's food without permission, and ignoring her when she complained, she said. When her cats developed fleas, he was angry.

Mostly, though, she felt like he was fed up with the United States.

Fort Worth Police via Reuters

Aaron Alexis in a Fort Worth Police Department handout photo.

“I knew he was not happy with America and he felt slighted as a veteran and he was ready to move out of the country," she said.

When he abruptly left their house in July, he went to live with Melinda and Marvin Downs.

"He would get really quiet sometimes, put his head down," Melinda said. "You would see him in thought but not in rage, not angry at the world."

After he left Fort Worth for a series of jobs on the East Coast, Alexis kept in touch with the Downses. The last they heard from him, on Sept. 9, he said everything was going well in Washington.

Even before Monday morning, though, there were signs that wasn't true.

He sought treatment with the Veterans Administration for paranoia and hearing voices in two states.

In August, Newport, R.I., police were called to a Marriott Hotel room where Alexis said he was being followed by three people and heard voices coming from his closet. He couldn't sleep because he thought they were using a microwave machine to send vibrations through the ceiling, the police report says.

His small circle of friends in Fort Worth say they saw no evidence of mental illness or aggression and struggled to reconcile the accusations against their friend with the man they knew.

"I don't know him as a monster. I choose to rather remember him as being the jokester. An honorable young man — not the one that flipped out and just went off on everybody," Melinda Downs said.

Kristi Suthamtewkal recalled his devotion to the Wat Busayadhammavanaram temple.

"Buddhism is a religion of peace," she said. "It does not make sense."

Pete Williams, Jim Miklaszewski, Richard Esposito, Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz also contributed to this report.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE at Reuters

U.S. Navy was warned that Washington shooter 'heard voices'

Tue, Sep 17 2013

FBI says shooter had valid pass to get into Washington Navy Yard
Tue, Sep 17 2013


By Phil Stewart and Scott Malone

WASHINGTON/BOSTON | Tue Sep 17, 2013 7:43pm EDT

(Reuters) - Rhode Island police warned the U.S. Navy last month that Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis had reported "hearing voices," raising further questions about how he gained security clearance at the complex where he went on a shooting rampage.

Officials say Alexis, a Navy contractor and former Navy reservist, opened fire at the Naval Sea Systems Command on Monday, killing 12 people before police shot him dead.

The shooting - a mile and a half from the U.S. Capitol and three miles from the White House - sent shockwaves through Washington.

The Pentagon said it would review security at military installations around the world and the White House promised to review standards for federal government contractors.

A Defense Department Inspector General's report published on Tuesday revealed security lapses that allowed 52 convicted felons to gain access to Navy facilities because budget cuts had undermined vetting.

Meanwhile, the U.S. capital paused to remember the victims, aged 46 to 73, who included retirees, parents and a bird lover.

Police in Newport, Rhode Island, were so concerned about Alexis' behavior on a business trip there in August that they alerted Navy police.

Alexis told police he believed people were following him and "sending vibrations into his body," according to a Newport police report.

He told police that he had twice moved hotels to avoid the noise he heard coming through the floor and the ceiling of his rooms, and that the people following him were using "some sort of microwave machine" to prevent him from sleeping.

"Based on the naval base implications and the claim that the involved subject, one (Aaron Alexis) was 'hearing voices,' I made contact with the on-duty Naval Station police," a Newport police officer wrote, adding that he faxed his report of the incident to Navy police.

The Newport police report said Navy police had promised to check if Alexis was in fact a naval base contractor.

Asked for comment, a spokesman said the Navy was looking into the matter, without confirming any details.

In addition, CNN reported that Alexis had contacted two Veterans Administration hospitals recently and was believed to be seeking psychological help.

"Initial reports indicate that this is an individual who may have had some mental health problems," U.S. President Barack Obama told Spanish-language network Telemundo.

"The fact that we do not have a firm enough background check system is something that makes us more vulnerable to these kinds of mass shootings."

The Navy gave Alexis an honorable discharge despite a series of eight to 10 misconduct charges, ranging from traffic offenses to disorderly conduct.

SECURITY CLEARANCE

Using a valid pass as an information technology contractor with a private company, Alexis entered the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters with a shotgun - bought legally in Virginia - and gained access to a handgun after he started firing, officials said.

He started picking off victims in a cafeteria from a fourth-floor atrium, witnesses said. Eight people were hurt, three with gunshot wounds, before Alexis was killed in a gun battle with police.

A U.S. defense official said a National Agency Check, a type of background check, was completed on Alexis in August 2007 and he was determined eligible to handle "secret" material in March 2008. Such clearances are valid for 10 years, meaning Alexis had no need to renew his.

Alexis' employer said it had enlisted a service to make what appeared to be two standard, employment background checks on him over the past year, finding only a traffic violation while twice confirming his "secret"-level security clearance with the U.S. Defense Department.

"The latest background check and security clearance confirmation were in late June of 2013 and revealed no issues other than one minor traffic violation," The Experts, an information technology company, said in a statement.

Alexis was arrested on September 4, 2010, in Fort Worth, Texas, on a misdemeanor charge of discharging a firearm. He was also arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out a construction worker's car tires in an anger-fueled "blackout" triggered by perceived "disrespect," police said. In 2008, he was cited for disorderly conduct in DeKalb County, Georgia, when he was kicked out of a club for damaging furnishings and cursing.

In each case, the charges were dropped.

People who knew Alexis said they were shocked by the shooting, describing him as a lover of Thai culture who worshipped at a Buddhist temple in Texas, although one acquaintance told reporters he had an unnatural affection for violent video games.

The Navy Yard was closed to all but essential personnel on Tuesday. Military police were stationed at the four entrances, checking the identifications of the employees who were being allowed back in. Other personnel milled around outside, hoping to retrieve cars that remained locked inside the gates.

"I've never ever felt unsafe at this place," said David Berlin, a civilian who works at the Navy Yard as an assistant program manager building weapons systems. "If someone wants to skirt the rules, they can do that, but you trust your colleagues."

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Deborah Charles, Ian Simpson, and Alina Selyukh; Writing by Daniel Trotta; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Bold #1: We don't talk politics here so please don't go down that road. That said, you can clearly see how they are trying to twist this wacko's actions to get further control. Prep accordingly.

Bold #2: This is what I'm reading in various places....he bought the shotgun legally and then acquired the pistol and AR in the middle of the fight.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE at The Daily Caller

Politicians, media outlets red-faced over wrong claims about gun in Navy Yard shootings
7:25 PM 09/17/2013

Chuck Ross

Media, politicians and activists had to backpedal Tuesday after an FBI spokesperson said there is no evidence that Aaron Alexis, the gunman who murdered 12 people in the Navy Yard shooting Monday, used an AR-15 in the massacre.

“We do not have any information at this time that [Alexis] had an AR-15 in his possession,” said FBI assistant director Victoria Parlave at a press conference on Tuesday. Parlave said that it is now believed that Alexis, 34, possessed a shotgun when he entered the Navy Yard.

Parlave also said that Alexis had “legitimate access” to the military installation.

Alexis, a former Navy reservist, may have had access to a handgun after the shooting began, said Parlave.

Many outlets reported the initial claim that Alexis used an AR-15 in the attack.

The New York Daily News ran a front page headline which read “Same Gun Different Slay” in reference to the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting and the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school.

The Daily News front page contained another error — it used a picture of the crime scene which turned out to be a unrelated to the shooting.

The website BuzzFeed posted a now-corrected article featuring several pictures of the AR-15 citing the gun as being used in the Navy Yard shooting.

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner continued to use a graphic of the Navy Yard shooter wielding the large AR-15 in a report on Tuesday, hours after CNN issued a report that federal officials were backing away from the AR-15 claim.

On Monday a federal law enforcement official told USA Today Alexis was “armed with an AR-15, which is a light-weight semi-automatic rifle, as well as a shotgun and a handgun.”

The Los Angeles Times also reported that Alexis was engaged in a “running gun battle” with Navy security guards while carrying the AR-15.

The Washington Post editorial board asked how Alexis acquired “his weapons (an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol were reportedly found on him).”

The New York Times cited the false claim as well. “Three weapons were found on Mr. Alexis: an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol, a senior law enforcement officer said,” the Times reported.

CNN talk show host Piers Morgan reiterated the false report on his show Monday evening saying that the Navy Yard “was still infiltrated by a man with a legally purchased AR-15, who just committed the same kind of atrocity as we saw at Sandy Hook, and Aurora.”

Politicians also mimicked Monday’s error.

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein released a statement on Monday which read, “This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons — including a military-style assault rifle — and kill many people in a short amount of time. When will enough be enough?”

“A gunman appeared with an assault rifle, and several other weapons,” said Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday morning.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/17/po...#ixzz2fG9PjTMu

[helomech]

Well there is a AR-15 style shotgun, wonder if that is what he used.

[ak474u]

Well there is a AR-15 style shotgun, wonder if that is what he used.

870 is what he used.

[The Stig]

Original story HERE at BBC

Navy Yard: Swat team 'stood down' at mass shooting scene
By Debbie Siegelbaum BBC News, Washington

One of the first teams of heavily armed police to respond to Monday's shooting in Washington DC was ordered to stand down by superiors, the BBC can reveal.

A tactical response team of the Capitol Police, a force that guards the US Capitol complex, was told to leave the scene by a supervisor instead of aiding municipal officers.

The Capitol Police department said senior officials were investigating.

Aaron Alexis, 34, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard.

"I don't think it's a far stretch to say that some lives may have been saved if we were allowed to intervene," a Capitol Police source familiar with the incident told the BBC.

A former Navy reservist, Alexis was working as a technical contractor for the Navy and had a valid pass and security clearance allowing him entry to the highly secure building in south-east Washington DC.

About 8:15 local time (12:15 GMT), Alexis entered Building 197, headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy, and opened fire.

Armed with a shotgun and a pistol he took from a guard he had shot, he sprayed bullets down a hallway and fired from a balcony down on to workers in an atrium.

He fired on police officers who eventually stormed the building, and was later killed in the shootout.

Multiple sources in the Capitol Police department have told the BBC that its highly trained and heavily armed four-man Containment and Emergency Response Team (Cert) was near the Navy Yard when the initial report of an active shooter came in about 8:20 local time.

The officers, wearing full tactical gear and armed with HK-416 assault weapons, arrived outside Building 197 a few minutes later, an official with knowledge of the incident told the BBC.

According to a Capitol Police source, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Washington DC's main municipal force, told the Capitol Cert officers they were the only police on the site equipped with long guns and requested their help stopping the gunman.

When the Capitol Police team radioed their superiors, they were told by a watch commander to leave the scene, the BBC was told.

The gunman, Aaron Alexis, was reported killed after 9:00.

Several Capitol Police sources who spoke to the BBC asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.

Capitol Police Officer Jim Konczos, who leads the officers' union, said the Cert police train for what are known as active shooter situations and are expert marksmen.

"Odds are it might have had a different outcome," he said of Monday's shooting and the decision to order the Cert unit to stand down. "It probably could have been neutralised."

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police Department, which protects the city of Washington DC, said allegations that a Capitol Police Cert team was on scene and later stood down were "not true".

On Wednesday, the Capitol Police said in a statement its leadership had "opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations".

"The [Capitol Police] offered and provided mutual support and assistance at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday," said spokeswoman Lt Kimberly Schneider.

'A blind eye'

Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terry Gainer, who oversees the Capitol Police department, confirmed officials were pulling radio logs from Monday's incident and interviewing the officers involved.

"It's a very serious allegation and inference to indicate that we were on scene and could have helped and were told to leave," he said. "It crushes me if that's the case."

Mr Gainer said that while the department's primary responsibility was to protect the Capitol complex, which houses the US Congress, that mission did not allow it to turn a "blind eye" when asked for help.

Alexis had a history of mental health problems, previous gun-related brushes with the law, and citations for insubordination.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel acknowledged "there were a lot of red flags" in Alexis' background that had been missed in the security clearance process which ultimately resulted in his having access to the secure building where he undertook the attack.

"Why they didn't get picked up, why they didn't get incorporated into the clearance process, what he was doing, those are all legitimate questions that we're going to be dealing with," he told reporters.

Right call?

The victims

Michael Arnold, 59
Sylvia Frasier, 53
Kathleen Gaarde, 62
John Roger Johnson, 73
Frank Kohler, 50
Kenneth Proctor, 46
Vishnu Pandit, 61
Martin Bodrog, 54
Arthur Daniels, 51
Mary Francis Knight, 51
Gerald Read, 58
Richard Michael Ridgell, 52

He said he had ordered the Pentagon to conduct a wide-ranging review of the physical security at all US defence installations across the world and of the security clearance process.

"Where there are gaps, we will close them," he said. "Where there are inadequacies, we will address them. And where there are failures, we will correct them."

A Capitol Police officer who heard the Cert request over the radio to engage the gunman reported colleagues within the department felt frustrated they were told to stand down.

The officer described a culture in which emergency responders are instructed to not extend themselves beyond the Capitol grounds for fear of discipline.

"They were relying on our command staff to make the right call," another Capitol Police officer said. "Unfortunately, I don't think that happened in this case."

[ak474u]

Well there is a AR-15 style shotgun, wonder if that is what he used.

I'm waiting to see a report that his shotgun had a "600 round assault clip"

[izzyscout21]

Last i checked, According to the FBI there was no AR15.