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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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