Aaron Alexis

Aaron Alexis was an American mass murderer and workplace shooter who perpetrated the September 16, 2013 Washington Navy Yard shooting, which left 13 people dead (including Alexis himself) and 8 others injured.

Background
Alexis was born on May 9, 1979 in Queens, New York City. He was raised in Brooklyn and lived in Fort Worth in Texas and was Buddhist. He enlisted in the Navy in May of 2007 and did service in Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 46 at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. He eventually earned the rating of aviation electrician's mate and the rank of petty officer third class. On January 31, 2011, Alexis was honorably discharged even though he was intended to receive a general discharge. However, despite this Alexis was cited at least eight times for misconduct. Among these were an act in Fort Worth in 2010 where he fired a weapon inside the city without provocation, an act of malicious mischief in Seattle in 2004 when he, in an "anger-fueled blackout", shot the tires of another man's car, and another act of disorderly conduct in DeKalb County, Georgia, in 2008. Alexis was never prosecuted for any of these acts.

In March of 2008, Alexis was given secret-level security clearance that didn't mention the 2004 arrest involving a firearm (something which was only found out on the federal personnel report which led to the clearance's approval after the shooting). Alexis later mentioned he was never charged nor had he been arrested in the past seven years on his clearance application, supposedly because the 2004 charges were dismissed. This ultimately led to an investigation by the USIS (United States Investigation Services) and them being sued for fraud charges by the Department of Justice.

From September of 2012 up until January of 2013, Alexis served the Navy Marine Corps Intranet network for an HP Enterprise Services sub-contracting company called The Experts. Upon returning to the U.S., he complained to a roommate of his that he was never properly paid for his services there. He also frequently claimed he was being discriminated against according to another roommate. Alexis later went on to work for The Experts in the U.S in July the same year. He was also working on a bachelor's degree in aeronautics from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide.

On August 2, 2013 (a month and two weeks before the shooting), Alexis supposedly filed a police report in Rhode island claiming he was hearing voices in his head and that he was being harassed. He was also supposedly being controlled by "extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves". Alexis checked into a hotel and naval police were called to it on August 4. When they arrived, they found that Alexis had taken apart the bed (supposedly because he believed someone was under it) and that he had taped a microphone to the ceiling, supposedly to record the voices of people who were "following" him. Nineteen days after this on the 23rd, Alexis went to an Emergency Room (ER) in Providence complaining of insomnia and was given trazodone for it. He went to another ER five days later for the same problem and was given more of the same medication. While there, he reportedly told the doctors there that he was neither depressed or thinking of harming others.

Shortly after this Alexis went to Washington, D.C. and stayed in several hotels (including one with five other civilian contractors at a Residence Inn hotel in southwest Washington D.C. since September 7). Two days prior to the shooting, Alexis, after passing a state and federal background check, purchased his murder weapon: a 12-gauge Remington Model 870 Express Synthetic Tactical shotgun, from the Sharpshooters Small Arms Range in Lorton, Virginia, 15 miles (24 km) south of Washington. While there, he also inquired about purchasing a handgun but was denied (due to federal law not allowing dealers to sell such guns directly to out-of-state customers) and, according to the store's lawyer, tested out an AR-15 rifle but didn't want it. After buying the 870 and two boxes of shells, Alexis took the shotgun home and made several alterations to it - he sawed it off and scratched the phrases, "Better off this way!", "My ELF weapon!", "Not what yall say!", and "End to the torment!" on its receiver.

Washington Nay Yard Shooting
On the Monday of September 16, 2013, Alexis drove to the yard with his rented Toyota Prius and arrived at about 7:53 a.m. and entered building 197 with his pass. By 8:08 he was carrying his shotgun disassembled in a bag slung over his shoulder. He arrived at his work floor and went into the bathroom to assemble it. After finishing he went to the building's 4 West section (which had a cubical near its auditorium) and opened fire at 8:16. Alexis shot four people (three fatally). The first call to 9-11 was made just a minute later.

Alexis then killed an additional five victims on the building's 4th floor and head down to the 3rd and killed two more victims only a minute apart from each other. He shot at others as well and injured a woman in the shoulder. Alexis fired several more shots on the 3rd floor before finally moving on down to the building's 1st floor. The first responding officers arrived on the scene at 8:23 and could not discern which building the massacre was occurring in. They found it by seeing victims fleeing from it and entered.

Meanwhile Alexis wondered the 1st floor before heading towards the entrance, where he shot and killed Richard Michael Ridgell (a security guard who was told to stay his post if the shooter attempted to exit the building) and took his Beretta M9 pistol. Alexis attempted to kill a Navy military police officer and another security guard with the shotgun but failed to hit either of them. The guard returned fire which sent Alexis fleeing down another hallway. He fired at two more police officers and a NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) agent but again failed to kill them and fled.

Alexis entered the building's west side at 8:34 and tried to kill two men with the shotgun, but it ran out of ammunition. So he switched to the pistol and killed one of the men while the other escaped. The sudden change of weaponry led to responding officers (who were still trying to find Alexis) to believe that there were two shooters instead of one. Alexis discarded the useless shotgun in a cubical while several officers entered 197, but Alexis once again managed to evade them by confusing them into thinking he was on an upper floor by firing several shots which echoed through the atrium. With the officers searching for him on the 2nd floor, Alexis was able to evade them and made his way back to the 3rd floor at about 8:55.

Concealing himself inside the floor's bank of cubicles, Alexis waited for 17 minutes until two officers and NCIS agents arrived there and Alexis engaged them. He managed to shoot one officer in both of his legs and evaded them when they dragged him down and out of the cubicles. The officers alerted more to Alexis' presence and he hid at a desk. A D.C. PERT (Police Emergency Response Team) officer and two more police officers entered the cubicles and Alexis emerged from the desk and engaged them. He managed to shoot the PERT officer but he was uninjured due to his vest and he shot Alexis in the head, killing him and ending the shooting.

Aftermath
Victims were treated for their injuries at two Washington hospitals. Numerous roadways, bridges, flights out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, eight schools, and several U.S. Senate buildings were all locked down for several hours after the shooting. Then U.S. President Barack Obama expressed condolences for the shooting's victims and both ordered flags to be flown at half-staff and attended a memorial service for those killed. The shooting caused a major rise in concern of the security of U.S. military facilities. Just a day after the shooting, a protest for more strict gun laws was attended by both gun control activists and even the relatives of victims of three other massacres (among them the Sandy Hook shooting and Aurora shooting). Nine days after the shooting The Experts were fired by Hewlett Packard because they failed to respond properly to concerns of Alexis' mental health issues. Ultimately a remembrance wall was constructed in memory of the victims in February of 2014.

Modus Operandi
Alexis killed his victims with either a sawed-off 12-gauge Remington Model 870 Express Synthetic Tactical shotgun, and later a 9mm Beretta M9 semi-automatic pistol he stole from a slain security guard. During the shooting Alexis wandered the fourth, third, then first floors targeting civilian employees and contractors. and later responding police officers, Navy military police officers, NCIS agents, U.S Park Police officers, and D.C. PERT officers. It's also interesting to note that at several points during the massacre, Alexis fired shots that confused officers into searching for him on floors that he wasn't on. And that his abrupt change of weaponry caused them to believe there were two shooters instead of one. It's unknown if he did this intentionally or not.

Early Crimes

 * Dates further unspecified: Eight citations for misconduct, known ones are:
 * 2004, Seattle: A victimless act of malicious mischief
 * 2008, DeKalb County, Georgia: An unspecified citing for disorderly conduct
 * 2010, Fort Worth: A victimless shooting

The Washington Navy Yard shooting

 * All the following were attack in the September 16, 2013 Washington Navy Yard shooting:
 * Fatalities
 * The forth floor shooting:
 * Michael Arnold, 59
 * Martin Bodrig, 53
 * Arthur Daniels, 51
 * Sylvia Frasier, 53
 * Kathy Gaarde, 62
 * John Roger Johnson, 73
 * Mary Francis Knight, 51
 * Frank Kohler, 50
 * The third floor shooting:
 * Vishnu Pandit, 61
 * Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46
 * The first floor shooting:
 * Richard Michael Ridgell, 52
 * Gerald Read, 58
 * Injuries/Attempts
 * The fourth floor shooting:
 * Unnamed victim
 * Numerous unnamed people
 * Unnamed woman
 * The first floor shooting:
 * Unnamed security guard
 * Unnamed Navy military police officer
 * Two unnamed police officers
 * Unnamed NCIS agent
 * Unnamed man
 * Officer Scott Williams
 * Officer Emmanuel Smith
 * NCIS Agent Brian Kelley
 * NCIS Agent Ed Martin
 * D.C. PERT Officer Dorian DeSantis
 * U.S. Park Police Officer Andrew Wong
 * U.S. Park Police officer Carl Hiott

On Criminal Minds

 * Season Thirteen
 * "False Flag" -
 * "Mixed Signals" -