T1B

88 wrote:The news agencies, as per usualm, are putting out conflicting reports in an effort to be first to report anything.

Screw_Michigan wrote:What are they supposed to do, confer with each other before reporting?

Smackie Chan wrote:But I usually go into the office anyway. For some reason, I decided to stay home this morning & work from here. Turned out to be a fortuitous decision.

I work in Bldg 197 at the Washington Navy Yard.

WASHINGTON — District of Columbia police say they are no longer looking for other gunmen in the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday morning, indicating that the 11 victims of the attack were all killed by a single shooter.


Federal officials have identified the shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old government civilian contractor from Fort Worth, Texas, who was new to the Washington, D.C., area, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation. He may have used the identification badge of another person to gain access to the base.

Federal officials say Alexis was arrested in Fort Worth on Sept. 5, 2010, on suspicion of discharging a weapon. The Tarrant County district attorney did not prosecute.

Earlier in the day, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier had said that investigators were seeking a white male in military-style clothing who had reportedly been seen with a handgun in the vicinity of the shooting on the base. But mid-afternoon, the Police Department sent out a message by Twitter saying that that man had "been identified and is not a suspect or person of interest.”

LIVE: Real-time Twitter updates

The other suspect Lanier said witnesses had described, a black male in military-style clothes carrying a rifle, is believed to have been Alexis, who was killed by law enforcement officers in a firefight about 10:15 a.m., roughly two hours after the shooting began.

Officials have not released information on a possible motive for the shooting, but D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said that they do “not have any evidence to think” that it was related to terrorism. Gray called the shooting a “horrific tragedy.”

“As far as we know, this is an isolated incident,” Gray added, saying that no other military installations appeared to have been involved.

Around 3:30, officials began to allow people on the base, who had been on lockdown, to leave.

President Obama, speaking at the White House, praised the victims as “patriots” who “know the dangers of serving abroad” but faced “unimaginable violence they wouldn’t have expected at home.” He promised that federal and local law enforcement officials would work together to investigate the shooting.

The number of casualties remained uncertain. Lanier confirmed "multiple victims inside who are deceased." Other officials said that at least four victims had been killed and at least eight were wounded in the shooting.

PHOTOS: At the scene of Navy Yard shooting

Dr. Janis Orlowski, chief operating officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, reported three shooting victims at the hospital but added that they expected to admit more victims.

"From the reports of the victims, it had to be a semiautomatic," she said. "They’re talking about gun shots that they heard in rapid succession."

One woman admitted to the hospital had a gunshot wound to the head and her hand, Orlowski said. Another woman had a wound to her shoulder, Orlowski said, and a male D.C. police officer had multiple gunshot wounds to his legs.

The three are in critical condition, she said, but described their chances for survival as good.

The incident began at roughly 8:15 a.m. at the headquarters of the Naval Sea Systems Command at the sprawling naval base on Washington’s Anacostia River waterfront. Several witnesses told reporters that the shooting broke out on the fourth floor of the building and that the gunman shot down into the building’s open atrium.

"I think it was all on the fourth floor," Patricia Ward, one of the witnesses, told reporters.

Ward, a logistics management specialist, was in building 197 when the shooting started. She said she was in the lobby using the ATM machine when she heard three shots. She said she started "panicking." She said she didn’t know what was going on. Then she heard four more shots. A security guard with a gun drawn told them to run, she said. "I just ran. I thought of my family and I just ran." Someone had pulled the fire alarm.

Ward said that to get into the building, a person has to scan an ID card. She said that may be how the shooters got weapons in.

Roughly two hours later, witnesses at the base reported hearing more shots fired. A senior law enforcement official said a gunman, who had been barricaded in a room in the headquarters building, had been shot and killed. The shooter had engaged police in a running firefight, a senior law enforcement official said.

A federal law enforcement official monitoring the situation said the conflicting reports of more than one gunman are coming from a situation where a “second building” is being checked for reports of shots fired. The official said most of the shooting occurred at the Sea Systems Command building, and that tactical SWAT squads were now canvassing the second building.

“We won’t know what we have until we clear that other building,” said the source, who asked not to be identified because of the fluid situation.

Officials have ramped up security in all federal buildings in the Washington area. As a precaution, U.S. Capitol Police have added personnel and increased security measures in the Capitol Building.

As helicopters hovered above the base, first lowering stretchers to airlift victims to local hospitals and later circling the base in an apparent search effort, air traffic was briefly grounded at the nearby Reagan National Airport. Several area schools were put on lockdown.

A D.C. police officer and a base security officer were among the reported victims.

About 3,000 people, both civilian and military, work at the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters.

Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez said he was in an adjoining Navy Yard building when the shooting started.

“Everybody rushed in” to the building where he was, and security guards locked down the facility. “It was pretty orderly,” he said.

Hernandez said in a cellphone conversation that the lockdown was still in effect.

[For the Record, 8:33 a.m. PDT Sept. 16: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez as Navy Capt. Danny Rodriguez.]

[For the Record, 10:14 a.m. PDT Sept. 16: An earlier version of this post quoted Patricia Ward as saying metal detectors were in place at building 197. There are not.]

88 wrote:No, moron. They should only report what they know to be true through verification. In other words, you don't broadcast rumor and unconfirmed reports. Such reporting is not "news"; it is rumor. And rumor destroys the credibility of organizations who the public needs to trust as being in the business of reporting news.

Being first in news reporting allows one to attract a bigger audience and hence cash a bigger paycheck. Being right should be more important.

Smackie Chan wrote:But I usually go into the office anyway. For some reason, I decided to stay home this morning & work from here. Turned out to be a fortuitous decision.

I work in Bldg 197 at the Washington Navy Yard.

Smackie Chan wrote:I decided to stay home this morning & work from here.

KC Scott wrote:If you were armed and properly trained you may have been able to help prevent that tragedy

BSmack wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote:What are they supposed to do, confer with each other before reporting?

Glad to hear the terrorists didn't blow up your mop room.

88 wrote:

BSmack wrote:That's Jimmy Stewart quaint. How's things in Bedford Falls?

Wouldn't know. But maybe you can see why people are less inclined to obtain their "news" from traditional "news" sources and more inclined to put on their bullshit waders and filter everything they hear from all sources including traditional "news" sources.

Smackie Chan wrote: I work in Bldg 197 at the Washington Navy Yard.

Moving Sale wrote:

Smackie Chan wrote: I work in Bldg 197 at the Washington Navy Yard.

So it's safe to say you are too stupid to get a real job?

War Wagon wrote:This, coming from the shit stained ambulance chaser who can't even listen to the tunes in chat/radio because you're internet service sucks worse than WebTV.

Why do you insist on 'tarding up every thread you stumble across?

88 wrote:iSwifter app makes the iPhone and iPad play the radio.

BSmack wrote:

88 wrote:

BSmack wrote:And what about WWI? So what if the Lusitania was actually carrying munitions? Cursing the damned Hun was a guaranteed seller. And what about the papers and TV networks that deliberately reported everything that Tail-Gunner Joe said as if was the gospel truth? No matter that thousands of lives and careers were needlessly flushed, nothing like a good old red scare to drum up business.

Don't ever tell me the media in this country has ever been interested in truth. Media has ALWAYS been about selling copy first and reporting facts second.

War Wagon wrote:

I wrote:I decided to stay home this morning & work from here.

Must be nice to have that option. How often can and do you get by with that?

Shlomo wrote:Smackie, in hindsight, you should have smoked a fat bowl this past weekend.

No way they'll waste time piss-testing until the dust settles...

Moving Sale wrote:

I wrote:I work in Bldg 197 at the Washington Navy Yard.

So it's safe to say you are too stupid to get a real job?

trev wrote:The dead are all older civilians. I assume Smackie knew some of them?

poptart wrote:How was he able to get the weapon in?

mvscal wrote: Valachi papers.

Screw_Michigan wrote:

88 wrote:The news agencies, as per usualm, are putting out conflicting reports in an effort to be first to report anything.

What are they supposed to do, confer with each other before reporting?

mvscal wrote:The sinking of the Lusitania had jack fucking shit to do with us getting into WWI, you fucking moron. You probably even know this so why are lying about it? Whose water are carrying and why?

Oh, for the record, McCarthy's concerns were well grounded in fact. He might have gotten some of the names wrong but this country was crawling with Soviet agents in all walks of life. The Venona papers made that abundantly clear.

Imus wrote:

mvscal wrote: Valachi papers.

BMonica wrote:
McCarthy had no access to the Venona papers whatsoever. He was an alcoholic rant machine with a one track mind. The fact that he might have occasionally been right with an accusation doesn't mean it was grounded in fact.

BSmack wrote:You're conflating my claim about the Spanish American War and the sinking of the Lusitania. The Lusitania was 2 years before Wilson asked for a declaration of war.

McCarthy had no access to the Venona papers whatsoever. He was an alcoholic rant machine with a one track mind. The fact that he might have occasionally been right with an accusation doesn't mean it was grounded in fact.

smackaholic wrote:...being a nog, contractors bend over backwards to hire him to show how non-racist they are.

War Wagon wrote:

smackaholic wrote:...being a nog, contractors bend over backwards to hire him to show how non-racist they are.

more likely, they bend over backwards hiring a qualified somebody with a security clearance.

direct your indignation (and ignorance) elsewhere, dipshit.

War Wagon wrote:

smackaholic wrote:...being a nog, contractors bend over backwards to hire him to show how non-racist they are.

more likely, they bend over backwards hiring a qualified somebody with a security clearance.

direct your indignation (and ignorance) elsewhere, dipshit.

the “Piers Morgan Live” host did broadcast a blunder of his own by insisting during a debate with gun rights advocates on Monday that Aaron Alexis — the man who killed 12 people during a shooting spree in Washington, D.C. — legally purchased an AR-15 rifle from a gun store in Virginia.

“I’m telling you a fact, Ben. He bought it in Virginia. Legally,” Morgan told conservative radio host Ben Ferguson. “This is the problem with America’s gun laws. It’s not legal where he did the act, it’s legal around the corner. There’s no federal ban on AR-15s, so that’s why they keep being used.”

The FBI agent in charge of the investigation said on Tuesday that Alexis bought a shotgun to carry out the attack, not an AR-15 that Morgan insisted as “fact.”