Thread: Navy Yard shooter identified as Aaron Alexis

Live updates: Navy Yard shooter identified as Aaron Alexis


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  Witness: Someone Was Shot in Head Next to Me
  
  September 16, 2013 12:21 PM PDT
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  September 16, 2013 10:11 AM PDT
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  Raw: Air Lift at Scene of Navy Yard Shooting
  
  September 16, 2013 7:58 AM PDT
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  D.C. Police Department Describes Suspects, Praises Shooting Response
  
  September 16, 2013 12:32 PM PDT
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  Police: 2 More Possible Suspects at Navy Yard
  
  September 16, 2013 10:22 AM PDT

September 16, 2013 10:49 AM PDT

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  Witness: 'He Raised, and Aimed and Fired'
  
  September 16, 2013 8:44 AM PDT
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  September 16, 2013 9:26 AM PDT
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  BREAKING NEWS: Shooting at Navy Yard
  
  September 16, 2013 8:33 AM PDT
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  Police respond to reported shooter at Navy Yard
  
  September 16, 2013 6:56 AM PDT
  The U.S. Navy says one person is injured after a shooting at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters building in Washington, DC.

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By Richard Simon, David S. Cloud and Brian BennettThis post has been corrected. See below for details.September 16, 2013, 12:47 p.m.


WASHINGTON — District of Columbia police say they are no longer looking for one of two “potential” suspects in the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard this morning, indicating that the 11 victims of the attack were all killed by a single shooter.

Federal officials have identified the shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old government civilian contractor from Fort Worth, Texas, who was new to the Washington, D.C., area, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation. He may have used the identification badge of another person to gain access to the base.

Federal officials say Alexis was arrested in Fort Worth Sept 5, 2010 for discharging a weapon. The Tarrant County District Attorney did not prosecute.

Earlier in the day, Metropolitan Police Department chief Cathy Lanier had said that investigators were seeking a white male who had reportedly been seen with a handgun in the vicinity of the shooting on the base. But in mid-afternoon, the police department sent out a message by Twitter saying that the man “has been identified and is not a suspect or person of interest.”

LIVE: Real-time Twitter updates

The other suspect Lanier said witnesses had identified, a black male carrying a rifle, is believed to have been Alexis, who was killed by law enforcement officers in a fire fight about two hours after the shooting began, shortly after 8:15 a.m.

Officials have not released information on a possible motive for the shooting, but D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said that they do “not have any evidence to think” that it was related to terrorism. Gray called the shooting a “horrific tragedy.”

“As far as we know, this is an isolated incident,” Gray added, saying that no other military installations appeared to have been involved.
Around 3:30, officials began to allow people on the base, who had been on lockdown, to leave.

President Obama, speaking at the White House, praised the victims as “patriots” who “know the dangers of serving abroad” but faced “unimaginable violence they wouldn’t have expected at home.” He promised that federal and local law enforcement officials would work together to investigate the shooting.

The number of casualties remained uncertain. Lanier confirmed "multiple victims inside who are deceased." Other officials said that at least four victims had been killed and at least eight were wounded in the shooting.

PHOTOS: At the scene of Navy Yard shooting

Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief operating officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, reported three shooting victims at the hospital but added that they expected to admit more victims.

"From the reports of the victims, it had to be a semiautomatic," she said. "They’re talking about gun shots that they heard in rapid succession."

One woman admitted to the hospital had a gunshot wound to the head and her hand, Orlowski said. Another woman had a wound to her shoulder, Orlowski said, and a male D.C. police officer had multiple gunshot wounds to his legs.

The three are in critical condition, she said, but described their chances for survival as good.

The incident began at roughly 8:15 a.m. at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command at the sprawling naval base on Washington’s Anacostia River waterfront. Several witnesses told reporters that the shooting broke out on the fourth floor of the building and that the gunman shot down into the building’s open atrium.

"I think it was all on the fourth floor," Patricia Ward, one of the witnesses, told reporters.

Ward, a logistics management specialist, was in building 197 when the shooting started. She said she was in the lobby using the ATM machine when she heard three shots. She said she started "panicking." She said she didn’t know what was going on. Then she heard four more shots. A security guard with a gun drawn told them to run, she said. "I just ran. I thought of my family and I just ran." Someone had pulled the fire alarm.

Ward said that to get into the building, a person has to scan an ID card. She said that may be how the shooters got weapons in.

Roughly two hours later, witnesses at the base reported hearing more shots fired. A senior law enforcement official said a gunman, who had been barricaded in a room in the headquarters building, had been shot and killed. The shooter had engaged police in a running firefight, a senior law enforcement official said.

A federal law enforcement official monitoring the situation said the conflicting reports of more than one gunman are coming from a situation where a “second building” is being checked for reports of shots fired. The official said most of the shooting occurred at the Sea Systems Command building, and that tactical SWAT squads were now canvassing the second building.

“We won’t know what we have until we clear that other building,” said the source, who asked not to be identified because of the fluid situation.

Officials have ramped up security in all federal buildings in the Washington area. As a precaution, U.S. Capitol Police have added personnel and increased security measures in the Capitol Building.

As helicopters hovered above the base, first lowering stretchers to airlift victims to local hospitals and later circling the base in an apparent search effort, air traffic was briefly grounded at the nearby Reagan National Airport. Several area schools were put on lockdown.

A D.C. police officer and a base security officer were among the reported victims.

About 3,000 people, both civilian and military, work at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters.

Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez said he was in an adjoining Navy Yard building when the shooting started.

“Everybody rushed in” to the building where he was, and security guards locked down the facility. “It was pretty orderly,” he said.

Hernandez said in a cellphone conversation that the lockdown was still in effect.

[For the Record, 8:33 a.m. PDT Sept. 16: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez as Navy Capt. Danny Rodriguez.]

[For the Record, 10:14 a.m. PDT Sept. 16: An earlier version of this post quoted Patricia Ward as saying metal detectors were in place at building 197. There are not. ]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/16/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE98F0K920130916