DC - Twelve killed, 8 injured in shooting at Washington Navy Yard, 16 Sept 2013

[mikkismom]

Pentagon to order security review, as questions mount over shooter's access


The decisions come as the incident once again raises concerns about the quality of the background checks being done for those in sensitive government positions, particularly for contractors. Shooter Aaron Alexis had been working as a defense subcontractor, and had his security clearance renewed just two months before the rampage -- despite a history of troubling and violent behavior. Twelve people, in addition to the gunman, were killed in the shooting


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ions-mount-over-shooter-access/#ixzz2fBSIGwk7


I don't care what anyone says, I think the FBI failed those innocent people. Unless I see otherwise, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :gavel:

The problem I have now, is how many others are out there ticking and getting ready to explode? :dunno: Clearly they were conducting shoddy or lazy, or just plain incompetent background checks! IMO :twocents:

BBM

This guy had two documented incidences with improper use of a firearm (2004 Seattle(?) and 2010 Ft. Worth.) The first, they 'lost' the paperwork and the second time, they didn't press charges.

He was actively seeking treatment with the VA(!) for hearing voices.

He served in the USN after the first gun incident and was discharged honorably after the second. Apparently, his SC was renewed during the time he was 'hearing voices' and seeking help for it. This guy fell through a LOT of cracks - going all the way back (and maybe before) the lost paperwork in 2004 - had he been dealt with then (or before), this wouldn't have happened.

Background checks are only as good as the information entered on one's background.

jmo

 

[Softail]

BBM

This guy had two documented incidences with improper use of a firearm (2004 Seattle(?) and 2010 Ft. Worth.) The first, they 'lost' the paperwork and the second time, they didn't press charges.

He was actively seeking treatment with the VA(!) for hearing voices.

He served in the USN after the first gun incident and was discharged honorably after the second. Apparently, his SC was renewed during the time he was 'hearing voices' and seeking help for it. This guy fell through a LOT of cracks - going all the way back (and maybe before) the lost paperwork in 2004 - had he been dealt with then (or before), this wouldn't have happened.

Background checks are only as good as the information entered on one's background.

jmo

Yes, but the CAC background check step # 3 that I posted on the previous page does it for me. The FBI conducts a fingerprint check!!!!! That would have shown his arrest records!!!!

 

[Gardenlady]

Wow, so the Newport police even contacted the Navy (and faxed over the police report) after the hotel incident where he changed hotels several times because he was hearing voice and thought people were following him and bombarding him with microwaves. why on earth did that not trigger some kind of look into this guy?!

 

[HMSHood]

Navy gunman had federal clearance despite disturbing history

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/1...nce-despite-disturbing-history/#ixzz2fB4g1V00

This needs to be looked at close, how many more are there?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/17/navy-gunman-had-federal-clearance-despite-disturbing-history/

There clearly was a break down. Aaron Alexis slipped through the cracks.

 

[HMSHood]

So a lot of these shooters lately are reminding me of people like that Michael Douglas character in Falling Down. Someone earlier described them as "grievance collectors", I think, which is a great term. The family annihilator types come to mind too - something happening to them at work or in personal life, one last straw on the camel's back, and they snap.

Add in what is looking like some sort of mental illness (voices, perhaps some PTSD), and it's a recipe for disaster.

A grievance collector is also known as an injustice collector. Every little slighting they receive, it builds up over time as they internalize it. They are emotionally stunted and immature and blame everyone else, but themselves. They harbor grudges for a long time. An injustice collector can be either psychotic, psychopathic, sociopathic, or neither (consumed by anger).

Injustice Collecting
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/injustice-collecting

Examples Of Injustice Collector
Seung-Hui Cho
Andrew Kehoe
Lori Drew
Yoselyn Ortega
Gertrude Baniszewski
Christopher Dorner
Adam Lanza
Kayla Narey, Flannery Mullins, Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez

 

[Charlie09]

Wow, so the Newport police even contacted the Navy (and faxed over the police report) after the hotel incident where he changed hotels several times because he was hearing voice and thought people were following him and bombarding him with microwaves. why on earth did that not trigger some kind of look into this guy?!

It's not illegal to be mentally ill, or hear voices. How would the police have been able to do anything based on this?

 

[Charlie09]

A grievance collector is also known as an injustice collector. Every little slighting they receive, it builds up over time as they internalize it. They are emotionally stunted and immature and blame everyone else, but themselves. They harbor grudges for a long time. An injustice collector can be either psychotic, psychopathic, sociopathic, or neither (consumed by anger).

Injustice Collecting
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/injustice-collecting

Examples Of Injustice Collector
Seung-Hui Cho
Andrew Kehoe
Lori Drew
Yoselyn Ortega
Gertrude Baniszewski
Christopher Dorner
Adam Lanza
Kayla Narey, Flannery Mullins, Ashley Longe, Sharon Chanon Velazquez

My issue with this, is it leaves out choice. People choose to do evil, even with mental illness, there's still a choice to shoot a gun at someone you may or may not know.

(I'll have to do more looking into it but it seems like Chris Dorner and Adam Lanza are two very different motivations......interesting.)

 

[HMSHood]

My issue with this, is it leaves out choice. People choose to do evil, even with mental illness, there's still a choice to shoot a gun at someone you may or may not know.

(I'll have to do more looking into it but it seems like Chris Dorner and Adam Lanza are two very different motivations......interesting.)

I agree evil is a choice one makes.

Not much is known about Lanza's motive. Dorner clearly was angry for a long time and internalized his rage from what I have read. It is something I have also seen in Seung-Hui Cho, Andrew Kehoe, Lori Drew, Gertrude Baniszewski, and Yoselyn Ortega. They bottle up their anger for a long time and eventually ate them up. They are extremely repressed in nature.

 

[liljim]

It's not illegal to be mentally ill, or hear voices. How would the police have been able to do anything based on this?

not the police necessarily, the navy.

its entirely possible that the navy did pursue this and was still looking into it, but i would like to think that someone suffering from paranoid delusions to that extent, with his history, would have had an immediate, even if only temporary, revocation of their clearance.

but you would have to look into the law regarding that and the process.

people have their security clearances revoked for all sorts of things, and mental health is definitely one of them.

this is of course ignoring the fact that if a full and proper screening had been done he never would have received it in the first place.

 

[Charlie09]

not the police necessarily, the navy.

its entirely possible that the navy did pursue this and was still looking into it, but i would like to think that someone suffering from paranoid delusions to that extent, with his history, would have had an immediate, even if only temporary, revocation of their clearance.

but you would have to look into the law regarding that and the process.

people have their security clearances revoked for all sorts of things, and mental health is definitely one of them.

this is of course ignoring the fact that if a full and proper screening had been done he never would have received it in the first place.

Yes, I can see that the Navy should have revoked his clearance. I was thinking of the reports of hearing voices at the hotel and even if police were involved, I'm not sure what they could have done.

 

[Elley Mae]

The gunman was identified by an F.B.I. agent holding a machine to the fingers of the dead body. Within seconds, it identified Mr. Alexis from fingerprints on file because of his military service.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/us/washington-navy-yard-shootings.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp

bbm


Colleagues who worked with Mr. Alexis at that time in a computer support center at Manhattan Borough Community College, near ground zero, did not recall him volunteering or mentioning Sept. 11.


bbm, I have wondered if this story of his was true about being at ground 0.

 

[Gardenlady]

Yes, I can see that the Navy should have revoked his clearance. I was thinking of the reports of hearing voices at the hotel and even if police were involved, I'm not sure what they could have done.

The police seem to have handled it fine, even to the point of notifying the navy and sending them their police report. I'm wondering why this didn't cause a review at the Navy's end - or maybe it did and we just don't know. This could/should have been the point where he was finally noticed as having some serious problems.

 

[Softail]

So now the DOD isn't responsible, the OPM is? :waitasec: Sounds like nobody really knows the process. No wonder he got through. Sounds like the Navy knew about him all along. They just didn't do anything. :doh:

Lawmakers question Navy Yard shooting suspect's security clearance

Lawmakers say this most recent incident shows serious flaws in the federal government's process for issuing security clearances and vetting contractors - an issue laid bare earlier this year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden who disclosed details about top-secret U.S. spying programs.

Democratic Senators Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester plan to send a letter to the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, demanding answers about how Alexis' background check was conducted for his security clearance.

The OPM is the agency primarily responsible for overseeing federal background checks.

"I want to know who conducted his (Alexis') background investigation, if that investigation was done by contractors, and if it was subject to the same systemic problems we've seen with other background checks in the recent past," McCaskill said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-navy-shooting-lawmakers-20130917,0,594581.story

 

[mikkismom]

EXCLUSIVE: How Washington gunman was left traumatized after being at the ENTRANCE to World Trade Center when tower collapsed on 9/11. His stepfather reveals all in first family interview

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ed-9-11-His-stepfather-reveals-interview.html

 

[21merc7]

WASHINGTON — The Navy has been lax in screening some of its civilian contractors who work at its bases and has provided routine access to 52 convicted felons, according to a Pentagon inspector general report that was released Tuesday, a day after a mass shooting at Washington's Navy Yard.

More at link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/17/navy-alexis-navy-yard/2828801/

 

[popsicle]

More at link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/17/navy-alexis-navy-yard/2828801/

One employee was given a base pass in 2009. He failed a renewal check in 2012 when a 2000 felony conviction for cocaine distribution surfaced.

"This contractor employee had unescorted access to a Navy installation for 1,035 days before the felony conviction was identified," the report said.

They need to set up a system that constantly monitors this imo. Still do in depth renewal checks every so many years, but constantly gathering information that affects current security status.

 

[21merc7]

One employee was given a base pass in 2009. He failed a renewal check in 2012 when a 2000 felony conviction for cocaine distribution surfaced.

"This contractor employee had unescorted access to a Navy installation for 1,035 days before the felony conviction was identified," the report said.

They need to set up a system that constantly monitors this imo. Still do in depth renewal checks every so many years, but constantly gathering information that affects current security status.

I completely agree. In this situation it would have saved lives if a flag pops up every time someone is arrested.

The other issues with contract work are not so easy. Hippa laws prevent anything as such. Not everyone is going to put down the dozens of doctors they have seen in a lifetime or even a short time for psych issues. And, there really is no way to find out via a background check if they are not military and don't go to VA Hospitals.

 

[Softail]

Good Lord! What next? :doh:

Probe launched over claim that elite Capitol Police unit blocked from Navy Yard massacre

The board that oversees the U.S. Capitol Police has opened an investigation into whether a tactical team of officers that was one of the first on the scene during the Washington Navy Yard shooting was ordered to stand down.

Several sources confirmed the probe to Fox News. The investigation follows reports that a highly trained and specialized Capitol Police team arrived soon after the shooting started, but was told by a supervisor to leave the scene.

The BBC, which first reported on the allegation, quoted a Capitol Police "source" as claiming "lives may have been saved" if the team could have intervened.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ce-unit-blocked-from-navy-yard/#ixzz2fHPPndrC

 

[Softail]

Video at link

Navy Yard gunman's mother 'so very sorry'

Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis's mother apologized to the victims today, and was unable to offer any clues on his motive for the shooting rampage.

"I don't know why he did what he did, and I'll never be able to ask him why. Aaron is now in a place where he can never do harm to anyone, and for that I am glad," Cathleen Alexis said in an audio statement aired on MSNBC from her home in New York. "To the families of the victims, I am so, so very sorry that this has happened. My heart is broken."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-navy-yard-shooting-20130918,0,1615407.story

 

[gxm]

I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I'm glad that Virginia has this law in place, otherwise there would have probably been many, many more victims. JMO, OMO, and MOO.

State law prevented sale of an assault rifle to suspect

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/us/state-law-stopped-gunman-from-buying-rifle-officials-say.html