AR-15 Rifle Found on DC Shooting Suspect Aaron Alexis

An AR-15 assault rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun were found on Washington Navy Yard shooting suspect Aaron Alexis, according to reports.
AR-15 Rifle Found on DC Shooting Suspect Aaron Alexis
An FBI screenshot shows Aaron Alexis.
Jack Phillips
9/16/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

An AR-15 assault rifle, a handgun, and a shotgun were found on Washington Navy Yard shooting suspect Aaron Alexis, according to reports.

At least 13 people were killed in the incident, including Alexis. He was identified via his fingerprints.

In December, an AR-15 rifle was used in the Sandy Hook school shooting that left at least two dozen people dead in Connecticut.

Valerie Parlave, the assistant director of the Washington field office of the F.B.I., called on people to look at the photos of Alexis, who was born in Queens, N.Y., and contact the agency about information they have about him.

“No piece of information is too small,” she said, according to the New York Times. “We are looking to learn everything we can about his recent movements, his contacts and his associates. We ask the public to look at the photos of the deceased shooter.”

Of the three guns found on him, she said that “it’s hard to carry that many guns, so there is some thinking that he may have taken some of them from security or whoever else he shot.”

The gunman was killed after he fired on a police officer, said CBS News.

Officials said they are trying to determine if there were additional shooters. “We’re continuing to see if there are in fact additional shooters, but we have nothing to indicate that yet,” the official said.

Navy authorities said Alexis was a former avionics electrician with the U.S. Navy and served there between 2007 and 2011, according to CBS.

He was carrying an ID card belonging to Rollie Chance, who was on administrative leave. Chance told officials that he did not know Alexis.

Alexis grew up in Brooklyn with his mother and father, his aunt Helen Weeks told the Washington Post.

“We haven’t seen him for years,” Weeks said. “I know he was in the military. He served abroad. I think he was doing some kind of computer work.”

Officials said that there is no motive yet for the shooting.

“We are confronting yet another mass shooting,” President Barack Obama said. “And today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital.”

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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