Washington Navy Yard shooting. Aaron Alexis had anger problems and was kicked out of the navy.

Aaron Alexis obsessed with violent video games and was a drunk. So what?

Aaron Alexis heard voices so he must be crazy then?

Aaron Alexis Washington Navy gunman killed. Fired selectively at targets.

Washington Navy gunmen kill twelve injure dozens. Navy identities claimed.

As authorities begin to piece over the details of what led to yesterday morning’s shooting rampage at the Washington Navy yards, authorities are now coming up with a disturbing portrait of the now said lone assailant Aaron Alexis.

According to the man’s father, Aaron Alexis, Algernon Alexis had suffered from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) after partaking in on site rescue efforts at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 attacks which had brought on anger management issues.

In time his inability to resolve his anger would lead to him getting in trouble with the law twice into the future, both incidents involving the discharging of a handgun. Although found culpable he avoided serious charges against him. A 2010 incident saw him arrested and held for two nights in jail over disorderly conduct charges and eventually evicted from his apartment complex after discharging a firearm in his then apartment.

Explains one report via slate:

Alexis … was previously arrested by Seattle police in 2004 for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what Alexis later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.” … At about 8 am that morning, two construction workers had parked their 1986 Honda Accord in the driveway of their work site, next to a home where Alexis was staying in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. The victims reported seeing a man, later identified by police as Alexis, walk out of the home next to their work site, pull a gun from his waistband and fire three shots into the two rear tires of their Honda before he walked slowly back to his home north of the construction site. …

When detectives interviewed workers and a manager at the construction site, they told police Alexis had “stared” at construction workers at the job site every day over the last month prior to the shooting. The owner of the construction business told police he believed Alexis was angry over the parking situation around the work site. … Police then obtained permission to search the home, found a gun and ammunition in Alexis’ room, and booked him into the King County Jail for malicious mischief.

 via Seattle Police Department

Following his arrest, Alexis told detectives he perceived he had been “mocked” by construction workers the morning of the incident and said they had “disrespected him.” Alexis also claimed he had an anger-fueled “blackout,” and could not remember firing his gun at the victims’ vehicle until an hour after the incident.

Nevertheless his inability to resolve his emotions would also it is claimed lead to the decorated former Navy man being discharged in 2011. It is now being speculated that Alexis’ discharge may have wrought him to seek deadly revenge.

The Pentagon has since gone on to confirm that Aaron Alexis was awarded the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal prior to his discharge in January 2011.

According to the Washington Post, Alexis had been cited at least eight times during his Navy career for misconduct. His write-ups included ones for insubordination, disorderly conduct, and excessive absences.

That said authorities are still stumped as to what may in the end motivated the man to go on his shooting rampage.

What though has been observed is that Aaron Alexis would end up using an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle, which perhaps not coincidentally as America’s most sold arsenal weapon was also used by previous gunmen in other massacres including the Aurora, Colorado massacre and the Adam Lanza shooting last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Since news of Alexis’ involvement in yesterday’s shooting, family members have gone on to express horror and incredibility that their son could have possibly carried out such a heinous act with family and friends alike going on to say he was a sympathetic gentle soul.

Told best friend and former room mate Nutpisit Suthamtewakul with whom Alexis would medicate with and practice Buddhism with:

“He lived with me three years,”

“I don’t think he’d do this. He has a gun but I don’t think he’s that stupid. He didn’t seem aggressive to me.”

Told close friend, Kevin McDaniel, the owner of a used furniture store in Fort Worth, Texas that Alexis had gone to recently to sell off his furniture in preparation for his move to Washington DC to take on a new civilian contracting role McDaniel described Alexis as a nice guy.

Reiterated McDaniel to the dailybeast: “such a nice guy that if he needed a place for Thanksgiving or Christmas that he would have been welcome with my family.”

While McDaniel emphasized “it’s not that we double-date or go bowling or anything like that,” he thought Alexis was a friendly person whose only fault was smoking cigarettes.

Nevertheless a disturbing portrait of Alexis is also emerging where according to the wife of Nutpisit, Kristi Suthamtewakul, Alexis would carry a concealed handgun to work at Thai restaurant, the Happy Bowl, the husband and wife operated and for whom for a short spell Alexis worked at.

And perhaps in a sign that not all was well, Nutpisit would go on to tell that he had not seen Alexis in three months.

Perhaps equally disturbingly, sources go on to tell NBC that Alexis had been treated multiple times for psychological issues, including sleep deprivation, anger and paranoia. Most recently they said he had been treated at a VA Hospital in New England.

Tells huffpo: U.S. law enforcement officials are telling The Associated Press that the Navy contractor identified as the gunman in the mass shootings at the Washington Navy Yard had been suffering a host of serious mental issues, including paranoia and a sleep disorder. He also had been hearing voices in his head, the officials said.

Aaron Alexis, 34, had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation in the case was continuing. The Navy had not declared him mentally unfit, which would have rescinded a security clearance that Alexis had from his earlier time in the Navy Reserves.

Family members told investigators that Alexis was being treated for his mental issues.

At present investigators are exploring the notion that Aaron Alexis may have recently been disciplined or even had lost his position with the civilian contracting outlet Hewlard Packard.

Law enforcement sources have since disclosed that Alexis had come to Washington, D.C. in recent days and was one of six contractors on the IT project. He and five coworkers on the project were staying at the Residence Inn.

above image found here

Then there were these comments on the web that made me wonder as well:

Why must it be a vendetta? the article has very little information, best to wait for more information before jumping to a conclusion.

You are correct, Vet or not, ‘discharged’ or not, he was lucky to have a job period.

I would never condone, approve, or cosign violence, I have a hard time understanding how someone can hurt another. But what I do understand is behavior, I have studied, looked at, and try to keep my finger on the pulse of the social emotional temperature. We must learn to understand our action have consequences. The corruption, bullying, nepotism, unfair treatment, the disparity of the poor and the rich, the discrimination, the wall street criminals, the hate, the silence of the bystander, these are some of the reason there are shooters. Its not the guns, it’s the behavior, the role modeling, the injustices, the greediness, and the blatant lies. We were all born to be good. The epidemic of shooters are the consequences to those action. That being said I am totally against guns, I don’t think our species has evolved to handle such power, if evolution thought it necessary we would be shooting rounds out of our fingers.

Ya, I’m not really buying the cooking while cleaning story. He also fired into a construction workers car because he said the worker had “disrespected him”.

Malicious mischief? In other civilized countries he would have locked away and / or treated and he certainly would have never again be able to obtain guns legally again in his life. Maybe then he would not have had the chance to kill all those people.

After a few hours, the world knows that this guy should have never been granted a Secret clearance or hired on a military installation.  Yet the govt is so busy telling us what to drive and eat, they can’t handle basic background checks.

This is pathetic.  Another Govt-style Nidal Hasan failure.

But this guy was also working for a civilian contractor to whom what once was government executed work was subcontracted. It was less a government failure than a failure of the private sector. You get the government you are willing to pay for. IOf we have security problems it is because nudniks like you don’t want to pay for it.

Here we go again another mass shooting another round of endless political grandstanding, no possible solution in sight. Polarize the masses, immediately, in some kind of political football game, in which they willingly participate. The military has experienced a spike in suicides and abnormal violent behavior by vets with PTSD treated with SSRI meds. Almost everyone of the mass shootings in the last 25 years have been perpetrated by individuals on SSRI meds. How do we skip over this increase in unexplained, abnormal violent behavior and go straight to the political football. Its amazing what can be purchased in this country with lobbying, campaign contributions and advertising dollars.    

Of course, we could treat the story for what it is – a self-contained incident involving an unstable individual.  That seems to be a thread in this type shooting.  Since we can’t ban crazy, what can we do about people who are off kilter? 

The President isn’t allowed to discuss race. Just as we’re not allowed to discuss guns when there’s a mass shooting.  

My condolences and deepest sympathies to the innocent victims of this senseless act of violence. I do take issue with the news media refraining from calling such acts as acts of terrorism. Any act intended to terrorize a civilian population should be called out as an act of terrorism. The unfortunate reality is that the term “terrorism” is only reserved for acts of violence committed by Muslims. The selective and calculating use of this term by media in this country will unfortunately continue to further alienate and stigmatize American Muslims. Things will change for the better only when we, as a nation, decide to face our deep-seated misconceptions and closeted bigotry.

I’m so tired of this I can hardly sit up in my chair. Officials are shocked at yet another display of gun violence, which means they are either displaying disingenuous public emotion or simply haven’t been paying attention. The president wants a thorough investigation of this “cowardly” act, which enables him to display requisite moral outrage to the public while also separating the shooter from the rest of us who want so desperately to believe he is not indicative of the society we live in. But he is, and the more disturbing truth is that nobody, but nobody, has a clue what to do about it. I cannot recall a single instance when a citizen returned fire on a tragically disturbed individual to save innocent lives. But a brave woman in an Atlanta school prevented mayhem by telling the would-be assailant she loves him. What’s the lesson here?

I can’t bring a bottle of water onto an airplane but I can buy an arsenal, at the drop of a hat. It seems as though the real problem in this country, is guns and a culture that glorifies violence as the ultimate solution to our problems. 

Nearly everyday we see stories about parents killing their children and/or their spouses. Babies are killed in drive-by shootings, kids are murdered while they are in school and every so often someone decides to take as many people out with him as he possibly can. 

While the proliferation of guns is obscene and a big part of the problem, the other component is America’s love affair with violence. Even PBS, one of the last refuges of tranquility is ramping up the violence on it’s nature programs to the point where they are for me, unwatchable. What could have been a very entertaining and informative program on birds, was marred by incessant and graphic footage of their being killed in the wild. The same thing happened with a program on the arctic, which felt the need to share with it’s audience , footage of an orca killing a seal. 

We’ve become so inured to violence that the producers of TV shows such as, Game of Thrones, seem to think that the more blood and gore they show, the better the program will be.