UPDATED: New Information Emerges on Navy Yard Shooting Suspect Aaron Alexis

Posted on Comments

About eight hours have passed since shooting began at the Washington Navy Yard, and information is still sketchy. Early reports that as many as three shooters were involved appear not to be true. Investigators are still seeking a possible second suspect, but it now appears highly likely that today’s carnage — which killed at least 12 victims and may have wounded about a dozen others — was committed by one man, Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas. He was shot and killed, and was identified by his fingerprints, the New York Times reports.

Motive for this massacre is unclear, and the FBI is leading the investigation now under way. My early caution about the need to be patient was unheeded by a certain notorious fool:

Alex Jones is an irresponsible menace — that is a confirmed fact.

UPDATE: The FBI is seeking information about the dead shooting suspect, Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth Texas:

Alexis was a Navy veteran who left the service in 2011.

UPDATE II: Networks raced to be first with the wrong name:

CBS News and NBC News retracted reports about the identification of the Washington Navy Yard shooter on Monday, just minutes after each network reported that the suspect in question was a Navy chief petty officer named Rollie Chance.
CBS’s John Miller reported that Chance was a suspect before 1 p.m. on Monday. NBC News later reported the same information and continued to do so past 1 p.m., even after Miller reported that the initial reports about Chance were wrong.
Finally, at 1:05 p.m., NBC political director Chuck Todd tweeted: “NBC News: we are now NOT reporting name of shooter; retracting that report. deleting those tweets.”

So if you’re watching NBC or CBS, you’re trusting unreliable sources. Whereas I’m always 100% right, except when I disagree with my wife.

UPDATE III: Deanna Boyd of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports:

Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, owner of Happy Bowl Thai in White Settlement, said Alexis was “my best friend.”
“He lived with me three years,” Suthamtewakul said Monday afternoon. “I don’t think he’d do this. He has a gun, but I don’t think he’s that stupid. He didn’t seem aggressive to me.”
Upon learning of his death, Suthamtewakul said, “ ‘Wait, he’s dead? I call him, but he doesn’t answer phone.”
Alexis had been in the Navy from 2007 to 2011 and was most recently stationed at Naval Air Station Fort Worth, according to Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Blansett, a Navy spokeswoman in McLean, Va. . . .
Alexis also worked at times as a waiter and deliveryman at Happy Bowl, customers said.
Alexis had recently visited Thailand and had been to Japan with a computer defense contractor, where he worked in information technology, said Sandy Guerra-Cline, a customer at Happy Bowl and copy editor at the Star-Telegram. . . .
Alexis, whose most recent address was 7940 White Settlement Road in Fort Worth, had not lived there for six to eight months, said his landlord, Somsak Srisan.
“Oh boy, I can’t believe this,” Srisan said. “He was always very polite to me.” . . .
A friend said Alexis loved Buddhism.
“He loved to go to temple, go to meditate in Thai and English,” the friend said. “He could do both of them.”
Alexis had previously lived in Flushing, N.Y., from 2000 to 2002. It is unclear where he lived from 2002 until he moved to Fort Worth.

Alexis was evicted from an apartment complex in Fort Worth after an incident where he fired a gun through the ceiling of his apartment.

Some of the commenters have pointed out that Alexis is black and have speculated about the possibility that race played a factor in the Navy Yard Shooting. There is no evidence of this, nor of any other motive — so far. Most likely, we could speculate that this is a “disgruntled former employee” situation. That is just speculation, however, and there is certainly no reason at this point to suggest that racial hostility or any political ideology influenced the shooter.

UPDATE IV: Bill Miller of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

So, yeah, the FBI is investigating.

 

123 comments

  4. The dead man and alleged shooter was black. This just stopped being a story the State Media will cover, especially if it turns out he was targeting whites.

  9. And if it turns out that he was a convert to Islam, or a contributor to Democrats, this story will be buried faster than you can say “squirrel!”

  13. We need to do something about all those Damn Texans screwing up Compton and South LA and Detroit and Chicago and DC. Maybe better border control.

  15. Cops screwed up. No way is that the same person. Virtually every facial and skull feature is different from one pic to the next.

  18. In 2004 he shot at construction workers who annoyed him. “Blackout rage” said his dad. It’s clear to me from the police report about the ceiling shooting (with all the little liars tells) that he did it on purpose, as the lady suspected, because her shredder noise annoyed him. His 2008 disorderly conduct arrest – who knows what that was about. But another roommate – not the Thai guy- thought him perfectly capable of, and filed a report accusing him of, putting junk in the roommates gas tank to damage his car. That sort of petty revenge for some unknown thwarting would fit with my working hypothesis: this guy was in the GIVE ME THAT BOOSTER SEAT Amy Bishop level nuts category – neurologically “special” in some way – on the spectrum, hated noise, completely self absorbed and believing himself so worthy that anyone who crossed him would have to pay.

  24. Still need a lot of information to really make the call. It’s doesn’t seem like racial motivation is involved, nor religion. So, the motivation is going to have to be pieced together once the investigators get a a look at the shooter.

  25. The motivation is mental-illness fueled paranoid rage. Put every little incident, so far, together and outlines of auditory hallucinations, and other temporal lobe dysfunction emerge.

  26. It’s time to do something positive, kids.

    If nothing else, put a fund together that will help the families of the victims with expenses.

    You talk the talk about being morally better than your ideological opponents.

    It’s time to walk the walk.

  27. The ‘quality’ of TV news commentary never fails to disappoint. Some are positively obsessed with the ‘mystery’ of how someone discharged from the Navy could end up working for a civilian naval contractor.

    Much like military base shootings, that too never happens.

Comments are closed.