Washington police last night said they were confident that the only person responsible for yesterday’s mass shooting at a naval facility in the US capital as they identified seven of 12 victims of the killing spree.
DC police chief Cathy Lanier said suspected gunman, Aaron Alexis, was believed to be the only gunman. Alexis was among 13 confirmed fatalities in the worst mass shooting at a US military installation since 2009.
A “shelter-in-place” order directing local residents to stay in their homes in place for most of yesterday was lifted last night.
Alexis worked for a subcontractor of computer firm Hewlett Packard called The Experts but had previously been a navy reservist until he was discharged in 2011 for misconduct.
There were conflicting reports about the number of people injured in yesterday morning’s shootings. Navy Vice Admiral William French said last night that 14 people were injured, while Washington mayor Vincent Gray told reporters at a press conference later last night that there were eight people injured.
Three of the wounded were treated at a hospital with two requiring surgery. Hospital officials said they expected all three to recover. The three, including a DC police officer, had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Several more people were injured but did not require hospital treatment.
None of the seven dead victims in yesterday’s shootings at Washington Navy Yard named by police was military personnel. They were identified as Kenneth Bernard Proctor (46); Frank Kohler (50); Sylvia Frasier (53); Michael Arnold (59); Vishnu Pandit (61; Kathy Gaarde, 62; and John Roger Johnson, 73. Even though a second suspect, a black man in his 50s dressed in drab olive-coloured military-style clothing, was ruled out last night as being involved in the shooting, the mayor said police still wanted to speak with him. Earlier yesterday, the police ruled a third possible suspect as a person of interest.
Yesterday’s mass shooting was the deadliest at a US military installation since a US army major killed 13 people and injured 28 at a Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009. Further details emerged about the suspected gunman who was killed following “multiple” exchanges of fire with police responding to shots fired at the naval centre near the US Capitol at 8.20am yesterday.
Alexis, who was born in New York but whose last known address was in Forth Worth, Texas, served as a navy reservist from 2007 to 2011 when he was discharged following a “pattern of misconduct,” a US department of defense official was quoted as saying in multiple news reports.
He worked as an aviation electrician attached to a support squadron based in Forth Worth, Texas where he worked on C-40 plans, the military version of the Boeing 737 used as a cargo plane.
More recently, he had been working as a military contractor through the HP subcontacting firm. The suspect was identified using fingerprints and a legally valid identification badge that allowed him to enter the Washington naval facility. There were no metal detectors at the entrance to the facility. The accused man also had previous run-ins with law enforcement officials.
Police arrested Alexis in Seattle in 2004 for shooting the tyres of another man’s vehicle in what he told detectives was an anger-fuelled “blackout,” according to the police report. He was arrested again on September 5th 2010, in Fort Worth, on suspicion of discharging a weapon. He escaped prosecution arguing that the gun had discharged accidentally as he was cleaning the firearm.
Washington Navy Yard, the oldest naval facility in the country, is home to the largest of five US naval command centres, which buys and maintains ships and submarines and their combat systems.
About 3,000 staff worked at the main naval headquarters facility, known as Building 197 where the shootings occurred. The naval centre is located about three miles south-east of the White House and just over a mile south of the US Capitol along the Anacostia River near the baseball stadium of the Washington Nationals.
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