Title: Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard
1Shooting at D.C. Navy Yard
2A former Navy reservist killed at least 12 people
on Monday in a mass shooting at a secure military
facility that led the authorities to lock down
part of the nations capital. Officials said
surveillance video of people fleeing the scene of
the shooting showed two armed men dressed in
different military uniforms and wielding guns.
For hours, the police said they believed that
there might have been three gunmen and that two
of them were on the loose in the city. The
federal authorities have since said they believed
the shooting was the act of a lone gunman,
identified as 34 year old Aaron Alexis. The chaos
at the facility, the Washington Navy Yard,
started just after 8 a.m. as shots erupted
through the hallways of the Naval Sea Systems
Command headquarters, on the banks of the
Anacostia River a few miles from the White House
and about a half-mile from the Capitol. Alexis
drove a rental car to the base and entered using
his access as a contractor and shot an officer
and one other person outside. Inside, Alexis
made his way to a floor overlooking an atrium and
took aim at employees eating breakfast below.
Police officers shot the gunman to death but not
before a dozen people were killed and several
others were wounded. Officials said they are
still searching for a motive.
3In Other News
- A man who tried to swim across a river to North
Korea was killed by by South Korean soldiers. The
shooting took place Monday afternoon at the
heavily fortified border that separates the two
Koreas. The South Korean man managed to get past
a barbed wire fence by the bank of the Imjin
River, which flows through part of the
Demilitarized Zone between the two countries, and
then jumped into the water with a Styrofoam
float. When the man failed to heed warnings to
return, the entire unit of about 30 soldiers
began firing at him. North and South Korea are
technically still at war after the all-out
conflict they fought between 1950 and 1953 ended
in a truce rather than a peace treaty. Their
border is considered to be the most heavily
fortified in the world. - The Ugly Animal Preservation Society, which
champions "aesthetically challenged" endangered
species everywhere, ran a contest in August,
inviting the Internet to pick their next mascot
essentially, the Ugliest Animal Alive. The
blobfish, a deepwater dweller, took home the
victory.