Saturday, November 9, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis left note blaming low-frequency attack
Richard A. Serrano
LA Times
September 26, 2013
The Washington Navy Yard shooter believed he was being subjected to an “ultra low frequency attack” and left an electronic note saying this was “what I’ve been subject to for the last 3 months, and to be perfectly honest that is what has driven me to this,” the FBI revealed Wednesday.
Aaron Alexis, 34, a computer technician for a private Navy contractor, killed 12 people and wounded four others in the Sept. 16 rampage as he fired a sawed-off Remington 870 Express shotgun in which he had etched several statements, including “End to the torment!”
The FBI also released video and still photographs from Building 197 at the Navy Yard, including scenes of Alexis in a dark blue-and-white shirt and dark trousers, wielding the shotgun as he roamed down hallways and stairwells in search of victims.
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This article was posted: Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 9:19 am
Tags: government corruption
Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis left note blaming low-frequency attack
Aaron Alexis and the Angry Vet Narrative
As I write this in a university library, dangerous and unstable people surround me. More than a third of college studentsexhibit depression, which drives suicide and murder among this fragile population, and more than a hundred murders occurred between 2005 and 2007 on college campuses. One can only conclude this terrifying behavior is the result of academic pursuits.
Of course, most reasonable people would reject that premise. Students carry mental health issues with them into college, and clinicians would say the stressors students encounter are only part of the equation. A majority would probably caution against a simplistic narrative that would paint an unfair picture of students, most of whom are well adjusted and make it through life without murdering anyone.
But veterans are not afforded similar restraint when we talk about the intersection between mental health, violent crime and personal backgrounds. On Sept. 16, Aaron Alexis opened fired in the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12 and wounding three before a police officer shot and killed him.
The Washington Post fueled early hysteria: “Navy Yard gunman said to be troubled veteran” led a report shortly after the incident. The Colorado Gazette blared “Gunman was in Navy Reserve; arrested in 2004.” The Fresno (Calif.) Bee went further with a sub-headline that read “Former navy reservist arrested in 2004 Seattle shooting; suffered anger-fueled ‘blackout.’”
A shallow discussion on mental health and the veteran experience has led to media shorthand for violence linked to former troops. Exposure to profound trauma mixed with weapons training invokes a strong image of downtrodden veterans, and news outlets drew tenuous lines from that idea to the Navy Yard shooter.
Alexis, a Navy reservist, never saw combat and maintained electrical instruments during his service. He was honorably discharged despite the Navy’s pursuit of a general discharge following a stream of bad conduct. Yet headlines that mentioned his service carried an unsettling subtext—his military training helped in the crime, and since he was a veteran, he had been struggled with post-traumatic stress.
Veteran advocates immediately protested the media’s portrayal, calling it inaccurate, damaging and untrue. The latest (and most prominent) comes from CNN’s Peter Bergen:
It’s a deadly combination: men who have military backgrounds — together with personal grievances, political agendas or mental problems — and who also have easy access to weapons and are trained to use them.
Bergen links Alexis and Nidal Hassan, the radicalized Fort Hood shooter, by virtue of their service. One issue noted by Bergen is access to weapons and military training.
He makes an extraordinary leap here.
Alexis murdered 12 people with a legally obtained shotgun and a handgun taken from a security guard, and while he may have fired a shotgun during basic training, nothing in his job description suggests proficiency with the weapon. Of course, the design of a shotgun demands little aptitude for effective use.
In the case of Hasan, sustained training on the issue M-9 pistol is relatively rare, especially for an officer in a non-combat role. Hasan sought an advanced pistol and practiced on civilian indoor ranges, and not only failed to integrate any semblance of Army training, he actively ignored it. A part owner of the range Hasan visited recalled that he fired at the heads of range targets instead of the center of the body, where soldiers are instructed to fire. Despite Bergen’s assertion, Alexis and Hasan were granted the same access to weapons as any civilian.
The other half of Bergen’s analysis falls on mental issues of troops and veterans. Kate Hoit at the Department of Veterans Affairs exhaustively debunked any notion between military service and violence, as well as any correlation between post-traumatic stress and murder, so I will not repeat it here. But in Alexis’ case, his mental health condition appears shoddy even before his Navy service after reports surfaced detailing gun-related offenses.
Bergen’s implication is a worrying one: even with access to the same information I have, the impulse to implicate trauma and weapons training is strong enough to disregard the fact that both men hadn’t deployed to a combat zone and did not carry the stereotypical mark of post-traumatic stress—a pervasive characterization from which he draws conclusions in his piece. Bergen should know better but doesn’t, and as a result, many civilians who read his piece won’t know, either.
The debate has appropriately shifted to the rigors of background checks and security clearances along the fault lines of mental illness, which should have caught Alexis’ mental instability and Hasan’s communication with radical Islamists. Bergen pegs these themes in his piece, but an issue much closer to most of his audience is the mental state of young veterans in the workplace, where most civilians will encounter them.
A survey conducted by the Center for a New American Security last year found more than half of the 69 company respondents practiced caution in hiring of veteran applicants due to stereotypes of a population riddled with mental illness. Only harm can come to veterans when small business owners, hiring managers and college application board members read and internalize the stories that Bergen and others wrote.
And that’s a duality of experience our newest veterans face: standing ovations during the Super Bowl on one side, and on the other, a general unease as civilians confront those who went to war for them repeatedly over the last decade (though Alexis and Hasan never did). Aaron Alexis and Nidal Hasan are anomalies that Bergen and countless other journalists may have recast as the new normal. In the meantime, untold numbers of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are succeeding in all levels of public and private sectors because of their combat experience, and not in spite of it.
How’s that for a headline?
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Aaron Alexis and the Angry Vet Narrative
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
He Was a Buddhist? 5 Things You Should Know About Aaron Alexis, the Man Who Killed 12 at the D.C. Navy Yard
Washington, D.C. is still reeling from the worst attack on a military base since the Fort Hood shootings in 2009, but attention is now turning to the perpetrator of the attack. 12 people were killed and dozens were injured yesterday by 34-year-old Aaron Alexis.
Alexis, who opened fire from a building overlooking the cafeteria at the Navy Yard in D.C., was killed after engaging in a firefight with police. It was unclear whether he killed himself or was shot by police, though.
Law enforcement authorities are still investigating why Alexis would have turned his guns on innocent people. Here’s what we know already about the man behind the latest mass shooting.
1. Prior Arrests
Aaron Alexis was no stranger to law enforcement. He had been arrested twice before.
In 2004, Alexis was booked by Seattle police on charges of “malicious mischief.” The reason? He shot out the tires of a car owned by construction workers. According to the Seattle Police, Alexis had been staring at construction workers at a site near where he was staying. Angry at the parking situation near his home, Alexis shot out the tires of a Honda. Alexis told law enforcement authorities that it was an anger-fueled “blackout” and that he couldn’t remember firing his gun until an hour after he did so.
And in 2010, Alexis was arrested in Texas for discharging his gun. He told police he did so accidentally; no charges were filed. But the gun incident came after he confronted an upstairs neighbor in a parking lot about making too much noise.
2. Alexis Was a Contractor
The 34-year-old worked for a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard called The Experts, an information technology and telecommunications company. The business is contracted by the Navy to work on its Intranet network (a term meaning a collection of private computer networks within one organization). He was reportedly upset about a payment dispute with his employer.
His ID badge as a contractor allowed him access to the Navy Yard base.
3. Alexis Was a Vet
Alexis’ connections to the Navy don’t stop at his contracting. Prior to being hired by The Experts, Alexis served in the naval forces. He enlisted in 2007 in New York, and served four years.
He was discharged from the Navy a year after the shooting incident in Texas in 2010. The Navy said the discharge came about because of a “pattern of misbehavior.”
4. Mental Issues
Alexis suffered from anger management problems associated with PTSD, his father told Seattle police in 2004. Alexis had also told police that he was in New York on 9/11 and participated in the rescue effort, and that the events disturbed him.
“He said he was hearing voices, he was detached from reality at certain points. He had sought treatment a number of times at a number of places and he was also frustrated there. He claimed he wasn"t getting his full VA benefits,” former FBI assistant director and CBS correspondent John Miller reports.
5. Buddhism
Alexis was a practicing Buddhist. He was deeply into Thai and Buddhist culture, and learned Thai while working at a Thai restaurant.
He worshipped at Buddhist temple in Fort Worth, Texas. Monks there told the Los Angeles Times they were shocked that he was behind the D.C. killings.
“He was a very devoted Buddhist,” said the wife of someone who knew Alexis. “Buddhism teaches forgiveness, not grudges. That"s why we"re so shocked.”
He Was a Buddhist? 5 Things You Should Know About Aaron Alexis, the Man Who Killed 12 at the D.C. Navy Yard