Aaron Alexis entered the Washington Naval Yard on September 16, 2013 ready to kill and be killed. The FBI stated, “Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis left a note saying he was driven to kill by months of bombardment with extremely low-frequency radio waves.” The note also explains that Alexis blames his action on the “radio waves” scrambling his brain.
Valerie Parlave, assistant director of the FBI’s Washington field office stated, “Alexis did not target particular individuals during the September 16 attack in which he killed 12 people, and there is no indication the shooting stemmed from any workplace dispute.”
Various records determined that Alexis was unstable and unfit to retain his Navy yard clearances. “Alexis, a 34-year-old former Navy reservist and computer technician for a government contractor, used a valid badge to get into the Navy Yard and opened fire inside a building with the Remington shotgun.” Alexis was shot and killed in a shootout outside of one of the Navy Yard buildings. The attack lasted a little over an hour.
After this incident, the Navy is taking extreme precautions and reviewing all clearances for bases. Through deeper investigations of backgrounds and clearances, situations such as these can be thwarted in the future. In the hours of the attack, multiple lives were claimed by Alexis, along with his own. For over an hour, chaos raged on in the Navy Yard and now with numerous funerals to be attended, the silence is far more overwhelming.
Sources: The Huffington Post