Now there’s a surprise: the gunman who launched a horrific attack at the Washington Navy Yard was having mental issues—of which the police were aware. CNN: “Aaron Alexis — the man authorities say is responsible for killing 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard — told Newport, Rhode Island, police last month that an individual ‘had sent three people to follow him and to talk, keep him awake and send vibrations into his body,’ according to a police report. According to that report, which is related to an investigation into a harassment complaint at a Marriott hotel in Newport, Alexis said he first heard the people ‘talking to him through a wall’ at a Residence Inn in Middletown, Rhode Island, where he’d been staying. He packed up and went to an unidentified hotel on a Navy base in Newport where he heard the same voices talking to him . . .
He moved to a third hotel, the Marriott, according to the police report. There, Alexis first told authorities that the three individuals spoke to him through the floor and then the ceiling. Alexis said the individuals were using “some sort of microwave machine” that sent “vibrations through the ceiling, penetrating his body so he cannot fall asleep.”
He told authorities, according to the police report, that “he does not have a history of mental illness in his family and that he never had any sort of mental episode.”
And they believed him? And no one in the RI police department thought to tell Mr. Alexis’s employer about this mental health crisis. You know; assuming that whole microwave mind control thing isn’t true (I’m looking at you Alex Jones). Anyway, usatoday.com has an account of how the killer smuggled in his legally purchased long gun; ominously described as a “law enforcement style” shotgun:
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation is continuing, said investigators believe that Alexis stopped in a men’s restroom and assembled the law-enforcement style shotgun, then proceeded to a spot on the third or fourth floor that overlooked an interior atrium and began shooting.
Contrary to earlier reports provided by law enforcement officials, Alexis was not believed to be in possession of an AR-15 assault rifle, the official said.
Alexis fired several rounds randomly on the people below, the official said, then ran down a flight of stairs where he confronted and shot a security officer.
It is believed that Alexis took the officer’s handgun and returned to the overlook where he continued to shoot. At some point, the official said, Alexis again left the location and confronted a victim described as a maintenance person or building staffer. He shot that person and returned one last time to the overlook where he was ultimately killed in a confrontation with police.
The po-po say the entire incident lasted from “30 to 60 minutes.” That’s quite a spread, Tex. Especially considering the fact that DC officers responded to the first 911 call within seven minutes.
One wonders how long the carnage would have lasted, or if it would have begun at all, if the Yard hadn’t been a gun-free zone in a gun-free military base in a gun-free city. And if the RI police had detained Mr. Alexis.