13 killed in D.C. shooting
Police confirm gunman acted alone; 8 injured all expected to survive
At least 13 people were killed at a navy facility in Washington, D.C., in a shooting rampage that at one point forced the shutdown of the U.S. Senate. One suspect, who was killed, was identified as a 34-year-old former navy reservist.
For U.S. Navy Capt. Mark Vandroff, 46, Monday morning started out as “very normal.” He hit the gym at 5:45 a.m., worked out for an hour, showered and headed for the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters down the street.
Carrying his lunch box and his briefcase, he went through security and then grabbed an elevator to the third floor, where he went straight to the conference room for his regular 8 a.m. meeting.
Seven other naval officials sat around the conference table to discuss the tasks of the day when, about 15 minutes later, “We heard a loud sound and we all looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, that’s an unusual sound. What the heck was that?’ ” Vandroff recalled. “And then the second sound a few minutes later where people started screaming, ‘Close the doors, close the doors,’ that was definitely gunfire. We looked up and saw the bullet holes in the top of the wall of the conference room.”
Vandroff and his crew quickly slammed shut the conference room doors, flipped the table on its side, jammed it up against the doorknob and hit the floor.
Only later would Vandroff learn that a mass murderer had penetrated the high-security Washington Navy Yards, located on the banks of the Potomac River, in the shadow of the Capitol building. And only later would he learn that among the dead victims was a close friend and colleague.
Vandroff ’s friend was one of 12 people who died Monday after a gunman went on a rampage at the major naval installation.
Authorities confirmed that the gunman — identified by the FBI as 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, from Fort Worth, Tex. — was also killed at the Washington Navy Yard after a running gun battle with police.
In addition to those killed, eight people were hurt — three of them shot and wounded, according to Washington Mayor Vincent Gray. Those three were a police officer and two female civilians, authorities said. They were all expected to survive.
The dead ranged in age from 46 to 73, according to the mayor.
At a late-night news conference, Cathy Lanier, D.C.’s police chief, said Alexis acted alone.
A number of the victims were civilian employees and contractors, rather than active-duty military personnel, the police chief added.
Officials would not comment on a possible motive. The Associated Press reported that Alexis was originally from New York and had been a full-time reservist from 2007 to 2011. He left the navy in January 2011 as a petty officer 3rd class in a fleet logistics support unit.
More recently, he had worked on a navy contract as an IT contractor. He was employed by a company called The Experts, which had been subcontracted by Hewlett Packard Enterprises Services.
The FBI said that despite initial reports that Alexis entered the complex with a stolen ID, he had a valid pass due to his work as a military contractor.
Alexis spoke Thai, worked as a waiter at a Thai restaurant and regularly attended a Buddhist temple in Fort Worth, the Washington Post reported. J. Sirun, a temple worker, told the newspaper that Alexis was quiet. ”But on the inside, I think he was very aggressive. He did not like to be close with anybody, like a soldier who has been at war.”
According to press reports, he was twice arrested for illegal use of a firearm. In Seattle in 2004, he was arrested for shooting out a man’s car tires in what he later told police was a “rage-fuelled blackout.” He was again arrested in Texas in 2010 for firing a pistol through the ceiling of his apartment, apparently because a neighbour was too loud. The bullet narrowly missed the neighbour’s foot. Alexis claimed he was cleaning his gun when it accidentally fired.
The mayor called the massacre “one of the worst (tragedies) in recent memory.”
U.S. President Barack Obama called the shooting a “cowardly act.”
“We will do everything in our power to make sure that whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible,” he said.
The shootings took place in the high-security Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, where civilians and military personnel work on design, engineering and technology of U.S. naval ships.
“It is a very secure facility,” local Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said in an interview.
“The navy has managed to keep it secure while it has been open to the public.”
When Terry Durham and her colleagues left their offices they saw a shooter turn a corner down the hallway.
The gunman shot with a rifle in their direction as they fled.
“It was a rifle,” one witness told reporters.
“That’s the best we could tell from this distance.”
“We saw him raise it and aim it in our direction and fired at us,” Durham told reporters. “He hit high on the wall just as we were trying to leave.”
Nobody in her group was hit, she said.