Washington, DC Navy Yard Shooting

On September 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis, 34, former navy reservist killed 12 people with a sawed-off Remington 870 shotgun in a military building in the Washington, DC Navy Yard.

He walked around the building with his gun ready to fire. His gun had etchings on it with disturbing phrases such as, “End to the torment!” The ordeal began when Alexis pulled into a parking garage and entered the building around 8:00 AM and put his shotgun together.

During his shooting, Alexis also engaged in a shootout with law enforcement officials. Alexis was killed on the third floor of the building at 9:25 AM. His victims were seemingly random, but all happened to be civilians and contractors. He injured many more in addition to the twelve confirmed dead. By the time they found Alexis’s body, he had somehow gotten a hold of three weapons – a rifle, his shotgun, and a pistol.

Reports note that Alexis was hearing voices at a hotel he had stayed at, and also that he believed he was controlled by electromagnetic waves at a very low frequency – he had labeled his weapon to reflect that as well, calling it, “My ELF weapon.”

Alexis’s access to the yard was questioned often after the shooting. After all, he was a reservist on contract with clear mental health issues. However, he had somehow managed to get inside the yard anyways, despite prior arrests in Washington and Georgia.