"Neither of those reviews would look at the procedures involved in granting security clearances to contract workers like Alexis, Navy officials said."...
9/17/13, "Navy orders security review as investigators prove Navy Yard shooting rampage," Washington Post,
Navy veteran Aaron Alexis, 34, was killed by police bullets on Monday morning, ending the deadliest day in the Washington region since the terrorist attacks of 2001. Several other people were wounded in the shootings, including a veteran D.C. police officer shot in both legs.
Alexis entered the Navy Yard with a valid pass, obtained through his work as a contractor, authorities said Tuesday afternoon. He was carrying a shotgun, purchased legally in Virginia. Alexis may also have obtained a handgun during the rampage, authorities said.
Valerie
Parlave, head of the FBI’s Washington field office, said Alexis was not
carrying an AR-15 assault rifle when he arrived, as had been previously
reported by some news media....
On Tuesday — as streets around the Navy Yard reopened and police released the names of the 12 dead — new details emerged about Alexis’s life. It appeared, in these early hours of the investigation, that he had repeatedly run afoul of both police and his superiors in the Navy.
But, time after time, Alexis seemed to escape the worst potential consequences of his alleged actions. Charges were dropped. The Navy allowed him to leave with an “honorable” discharge, even after a history of misconduct.
And Alexis wound up with a job in information technology, a “secret” government security clearance and a shotgun.
The military’s first job would be to unravel the last apparent failure, in a long chain of them. How did Alexis get onto the tightly guarded base with a gun?
The review ordered by Hagel would examine the physical security of military bases, as opposed to the granting of security clearances to individuals. Hagel’s order came after a similar order issued by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to examine security procedures at Navy and Marine Corps installations in the United States.
Navy officials said their first review would be a quick assessment of current “physical” security procedures, including how visitors are searched at base entrances. A second, longer review would look at access to those bases and whether new regulations might be required.
Neither of those reviews would look at the procedures involved in granting security clearances to contract workers like Alexis, Navy officials said.
Alexis’s employer questioned Tuesday how he could have been granted a “secret”-level security clearance by the government. Thomas Hoshko, chief executive officer of The Experts, said he was disturbed upon seeing media reports about incidents, investigated by police, in which Alexis shot out tires on a construction worker’s car in 2004 and fired through the ceiling of his Fort Worth apartment in 2010, barely missing his upstairs neighbor.
“If I can find this out just by doing a Google search, that is sad,” Hoshko said. “Anything that suggest criminal problems or mental health issues, that would be a flag. We would not have hired him.”...
Police also released all the names of the dead — many of them workers whose offices were behind high walls and armed guards, seemingly in one of the safest corners of federal Washington.
They were not safe. The dead were found in the building’s lobby, police said, and on the third and fourth floors.
Those killed in the rampage were: Michael Arnold, 59; Martin Bodrog, 54; Arthur Daniels, 51; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathleen Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Mary Knight, 51; Frank Kohler, 50; Vishnu Pandit, 61; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46; Gerald L. Read, 58; and Richard Michael Ridgell, 52....
It took a series of shootouts to bring Alexis down, officials said. Active shooter teams engaged him several times before at least two officers — one from the D.C. police and one from the U.S. Park Police — fatally wounded the suspect, they said.
Alexis left Texas about a year ago.
Authorities made a public appeal Monday for help in tracing his movements since then. Parlave
said he had been in the Washington area since about Aug. 25 and had
stayed most recently at a Residence Inn in Southwest Washington. That
stay began on Sept. 7....On Tuesday — as streets around the Navy Yard reopened and police released the names of the 12 dead — new details emerged about Alexis’s life. It appeared, in these early hours of the investigation, that he had repeatedly run afoul of both police and his superiors in the Navy.
But, time after time, Alexis seemed to escape the worst potential consequences of his alleged actions. Charges were dropped. The Navy allowed him to leave with an “honorable” discharge, even after a history of misconduct.
And Alexis wound up with a job in information technology, a “secret” government security clearance and a shotgun.
The military’s first job would be to unravel the last apparent failure, in a long chain of them. How did Alexis get onto the tightly guarded base with a gun?
The review ordered by Hagel would examine the physical security of military bases, as opposed to the granting of security clearances to individuals. Hagel’s order came after a similar order issued by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to examine security procedures at Navy and Marine Corps installations in the United States.
Navy officials said their first review would be a quick assessment of current “physical” security procedures, including how visitors are searched at base entrances. A second, longer review would look at access to those bases and whether new regulations might be required.
Neither of those reviews would look at the procedures involved in granting security clearances to contract workers like Alexis, Navy officials said.
Alexis’s employer questioned Tuesday how he could have been granted a “secret”-level security clearance by the government. Thomas Hoshko, chief executive officer of The Experts, said he was disturbed upon seeing media reports about incidents, investigated by police, in which Alexis shot out tires on a construction worker’s car in 2004 and fired through the ceiling of his Fort Worth apartment in 2010, barely missing his upstairs neighbor.
“If I can find this out just by doing a Google search, that is sad,” Hoshko said. “Anything that suggest criminal problems or mental health issues, that would be a flag. We would not have hired him.”...
Police also released all the names of the dead — many of them workers whose offices were behind high walls and armed guards, seemingly in one of the safest corners of federal Washington.
They were not safe. The dead were found in the building’s lobby, police said, and on the third and fourth floors.
Those killed in the rampage were: Michael Arnold, 59; Martin Bodrog, 54; Arthur Daniels, 51; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathleen Gaarde, 62; John Roger Johnson, 73; Mary Knight, 51; Frank Kohler, 50; Vishnu Pandit, 61; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46; Gerald L. Read, 58; and Richard Michael Ridgell, 52....
It took a series of shootouts to bring Alexis down, officials said. Active shooter teams engaged him several times before at least two officers — one from the D.C. police and one from the U.S. Park Police — fatally wounded the suspect, they said.
Alexis left Texas about a year ago.
Navy officials said that they did not have information about Alexis’s medical history or whether he was ever treated for mental illness. In both the House and Senate, committees have asked the Department of Veterans Affairs for any information on mental health treatment provided to Alexis.
That department has not confirmed that Alexis received any treatment for mental health problems. But, according to a police report, Alexis told Seattle police that he had experienced a “black-out” fueled by anger in 2004, when he allegedly shot out the tires of a construction worker’s car. Alexis also said he had been at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that “those events had disturbed him,” according to the police report.
The Navy on Tuesday corrected its initial account of the circumstances under which Alexis left the service. He received an honorable discharge, effective Jan. 31, 2011, a Navy official said. On Monday, the Navy mistakenly said that Alexis had received a general discharge, a less-desirable category that would have indicated to future employers that there was something amiss with his performance.
The official clarified that the service had originally sought to kick out Alexis with a general discharge because of his pattern of misconduct while in uniform, in addition to his arrest by Texas authorities in 2010 for shooting a gun into his neighbor’s apartment. But those proceedings were moving slowly, and it was unclear whether the Navy had sufficient cause to approve a general discharge, the official said.
As a result, when Alexis applied on his own to leave the Navy in early 2011 with an honorable discharge, the service granted his request, the official said."
==========================
"We had just recently re-hired him. Another background investigation was re-run and cleared through the defense security service in July 2013," Hoshko said."
9/16/13, "Suspected U.S. shooter had 'secret' clearance, employer says," Reuters
"Aaron Alexis, the 34-year-old suspect in Monday's shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, had "secret" clearance and was assigned to start working there as a civilian contractor with a military-issued ID card, his firm's chief executive told Reuters.
"He did have a secret clearance. And he did have a CAC (common access card)," said Thomas Hoshko, CEO of The Experts Inc, which was helping service the Navy Marine Corps Intranet as a subcontractor for HP Enterprise Services, part of Hewlett-Packard Co....
.
Asked when Alexis was supposed to start work, Hoshko said in a telephone interview: "That's what I got to find out, if he was supposed to start today ... It's not clear to me."
.
Hoshko said he was unaware of any issues with misconduct involving Alexis or any possible grievance that could have led to the shooting. Alexis had previously worked for The Experts in Japan from September 2012 to January 2013, he said.
"We had just recently re-hired him. Another background investigation was re-run and cleared through the defense security service in July 2013," Hoshko said.
Hoshko said he believed that Alexis' "secret" security clearance dated back to 2007.
The Navy said Alexis enlisted as a full-time Navy reservist in May 2007. He was discharged in 2011 after a series of misconduct issues, a Navy official said." via Free Republic
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