By ERIC TUCKER, BRETT ZONGKER & LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press on Sep 17, 2013, at 2:32 AM Updated on 9/17/13 at 2:45 AM
WASHINGTON - A defense contractor employee went on a shooting rampage Monday inside a building at the heavily secured Washington Navy Yard, spraying bullets in the hallways and firing from a balcony onto office workers in an atrium below, authorities and witnesses said. Thirteen people were killed, including the gunman.
Investigators said they had not established a motive for the attack, which 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.
Authorities said they were looking for a possible second attacker who may have been disguised in an olive-drab military-style uniform.
But as the day wore on and night fell, the rampage increasingly appeared to be the work of a lone gunman, and Navy Yard employees were gradually released from the complex and children were let out of their locked-down schools.
As for whether it may have been a terrorist attack, Mayor Vincent Gray said: "We don't have any reason to think that at this stage." But he said the possibility had not been ruled out.
It was the deadliest shooting rampage at a U.S.-based military installation since Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in 2009 at Fort Hood in Texas. He was convicted last month and sentenced to death.
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 and identified the gunman killed in the attack as 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Texas. He died after a running gunbattle with police, investigators said.
Police said he used a valid pass to get onto the base.
At the time of the rampage, he was working in information technology with a company that was a Defense Department subcontractor.
Alexis was 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, Texas.
In addition to those killed, more than a dozen people were hurt, including a police officer and two female civilians who were shot and wounded. They were all expected to survive.
The Washington Navy Yard is a sprawling labyrinth of buildings and streets protected by armed guards and metal detectors, and employees have to show their IDs at doors and gates to come and go. About 20,000 people work there.
The rampage took place at Building 197, the headquarters for Naval Sea Systems Command, which buys, builds and maintains ships, submarines and combat systems. About 3,000 people work at headquarters, many of them civilians.
Witnesses described a gunman opening fire from a fourth-floor overlook, aiming down on people in the cafeteria on the main floor. Others said a gunman fired at them in a third-floor hallway.
Todd Brundidge, an executive assistant with Navy Sea Systems Command, said he and other co-workers encountered a gunman in a long hallway on the third floor. The gunman was wearing all blue, he said.
"He just turned and started firing," Brundidge said.
Terrie Durham, an executive assistant with the same agency, said the gunman fired toward her and Brundidge.
"He aimed high and missed," she said. "He said nothing. As soon as I realized he was shooting, we just said, 'Get out of the building.'"
Police would not give any details on the gunman's weaponry, but witnesses said the man they saw had a long gun - which can mean a rifle or a shotgun.
As emergency vehicles and law enforcement officers flooded streets around the complex, a helicopter hovered, nearby schools were locked down and airplanes at nearby Reagan National Airport were grounded so they would not interfere with law-enforcement choppers.
Security was tightened at other federal buildings. Senate officials shut down their side of the Capitol while authorities searched for the potential second attacker. The House remained open.
Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, was at the base at the time the shooting began but was moved unharmed to a nearby military installation.
Anxious relatives and friends of those who work at the complex waited to hear from loved ones.
Tech Sgt. David Reyes, who works at Andrews Air Force Base, said he was waiting to pick up his wife, Dina, who was under lockdown in a building next to where the shooting happened. She sent him a text message.
"They are under lockdown because they just don't know," Reyes said. "They have to check every building in there, and they have to check every room and just, of course, a lot of rooms."
Biographical information on Navy Yard suspect
WASHINGTON (AP) - Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old former Navy reservist, was identified by the FBI on Monday as the gunman responsible for a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard in which 13 people died, including Alexis. Here are some biographical details on Alexis:
Alexis
NAME: Aaron Alexis
AGE: 34 (born May 9, 1979)
HOMETOWN: New York City
LAST RESIDENCE: Fort Worth, Texas
OCCUPATION: Navy reservist from 2007-2011; left as a petty officer 3rd class, stationed in Fort Worth. After discharge, worked as a waiter at the Happy Bowl Thai restaurant in White Settlement, a suburb of Fort Worth, until May 2013.
EDUCATION: Was pursuing a bachelor's degree in aeronautics via online classes at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
ARREST RECORD: In September 2010, arrested on suspicion of discharging a firearm within city limits after a neighbor reported she was nearly shot by a bullet fired from his downstairs apartment. He told police his gun accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it; no charges were filed. In May 2004, arrested in Seattle for shooting out the tires of a vehicle in what he said was an anger-fueled "blackout."
Original Print Headline: Rampage: 13 die
US & World
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a new trial for five former New Orleans police officers convicted of civil rights violations stemming from deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina, concluding the case had been tainted by "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct."
A month before he went on the rampage that left 13 dead, Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis complained to police in Rhode Island that people were talking to him through the walls and ceilings of his hotel rooms and sending microwave vibrations into his body to deprive him of sleep.
