Washington gunman Alexis had history of mental problems

The former Navy reservist who slaughtered 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard had been “hearing voices” and was being treated for mental problems in the weeks before the shooting rampage, but was not stripped of his security clearance, officials said.

Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old information technology employee with a defence contractor, used a valid pass to get into the highly secured installation and started firing inside a building, the FBI said. He was killed in a gun battle with police.

The motive for the mass shooting — the deadliest on a military installation in the US since the attack at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 — was a mystery, investigators said.

US law enforcement officials said there was no known connection to international or domestic terrorism, and that investigators have found no manifesto or other writings suggesting a political or religious motivation.

Alexis had been suffering a host of serious mental problems, including paranoia and a sleep disorder, and had been ‘hearing voices’ in his head, according to officials.

He had been treated since August by Veterans Affairs for his mental problems.

The Navy had not declared him mentally unfit, which would have rescinded a security clearance Alexis had from his earlier time in the Navy Reserves.

The assault is likely to raise more questions about the adequacy of the background checks done on contract employees and others who are issued with security clearances — an issue that came up most recently with NSA leaker Edward Snowden, an IT employee with a government contractor.

A Buddhist convert who also had flare-ups of rage, Alexis, a black man who grew up in New York City and whose last known address was in Fort Worth, Texas, complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination. He also had two run-ins with the law over shootings in 2004 and 2010 in Texas and Seattle.

In addition to those killed at the Navy Yard attack, eight people were hurt, including three who were shot and wounded. Those three were a police officer and two female civilians, authorities said. “This is a horrific tragedy,” Mayor Vincent Gray said.

Alexis carried three weapons: An AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun, and a handgun that he took from a police officer at the scene.

The AR-15 is the same type of rifle used in last year’s mass shooting at a Newtown elementary school in which 20 students and six women were killed.

The weapon was also used in the shooting at a Colorado cinema that killed 12 and wounded 70.

For much of yesterday, authorities said they were looking for a possible second attacker. But late on Monday, they said they were convinced the shooting was the work of a lone gunman, and the lockdown around the area was eased.

At the time of the rampage, Alexis was an employee with The Experts, a company that was a defence department subcontractor on a Navy-Marine Corps computer project.

Alexis lived in Seattle in 2004 and 2005. In 2004 he was arrested for shooting out the tyres of another vehicle in what he later described to detectives as an anger-fuelled “blackout”.