Tainted killer had access to US naval facility
The shoot-out incident at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, which left a dozen persons including an Indian-American dead, raises serious questions about the slippages in security by American authorities who are otherwise over-zealous in harassing people through racial profiling techniques in the name of national security at airports and elsewhere. The gunman, whom the Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified as 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, had a troubled past. He had received a ‘general discharge' from the Navy Reserve in 2011, which in lay terms means that he had been sacked for misconduct. In fact, the dismissal was, as the authorities have now said, on the grounds of “a pattern of misconduct”. In 2010, he had been questioned for firing a gun through the floor of his house. He got away by explaining that the weapon had gone off accidentally when he was cleaning it. Earlier in 2004, he had been arrested for firing bullets from his Glock pistol into the tires of some vehicles that had been parked adjacent to his house. Inexplicably, the police did not charge Alexis and his name remained out of the crime registers. His father had then told the authorities that his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, Alexis, who was eventually gunned down by the police in the encounter at the Navy Yard, had no problems getting the necessary security clearance for working as a computer specialist for a private contractor that maintained the computer systems in the Yard. If only the authorities had conducted a thorough search of his personal conduct, they would have stumbled on all the information that is now filtering into the public domain, including testimonials from those who have known him. Most of them say that he had an aggressive streak in him and seemed to have gone into some sort of depression after being summarily dismissed from naval service. Authorities now say that the 2011 sacking could have been the trigger for this carnage. People who security-cleared him cannot take the plea that the man did not have any police record, so it was difficult for them to pinpoint anything against him. His errant conduct in 2004, years before he was sacked, and later, ought to have come to light in the checking process.
While it is obvious that he had access to the highly-secure installation that houses many naval facilities and the Admiral of the US Navy as well by virtue of the security clearance, it is yet unclear how he could do so while in the possession of a weapon that he had no business carrying. Some reports in the American media have suggested that he could have got into the Yard with the gun through a side entrance that opens with a coded input and is not manned by security personnel who watch the main entrance. Whatever the case may be, with such a blemished past, Alexis should not have been security-cleared in the first place. Innocent people have paid with their lives for this shocking lapse.