SEATTLE — The dead suspect in the Navy yard shootings in Washington, D.C., Aaron Alexis, had been arrested in Seattle in 2004 for shooting out a car’s tires.
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Alexis was a former avionics electrician in the Navy and has lived in Seattle, where he still has family.
According to Seattle police, Alexis was arrested in 2004 for shooting out the tires on another man’s car in what he later told detectives was an angry blackout.
(See Rare’s full coverage of the D.C. Navy Yard shooting rampage)
Alexis had been staying at a home on Beacon Hill next to a construction worksite, where two workers had parked their car.
The victims told officers they saw a man, later identified as Alexis, walk out of the home next to their worksite, pull a gun from his waistband and fire three shots into the rear tires of the Honda before walking back to his home north of the construction site.
Officers responded but could not find Alexis.
Employees at the construction site told officers they saw Alexis staring at them for a month, and the owner of the construction business said Alexis may have been angry about parking around the site.
Officers who searched the home where Alexis was staying said they found a gun and ammunition in his room. He was booked into the King County Jail for malicious mischief on June 3, 2004.
After his arrest, police said Alexis told detectives he thought 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 men’s car until an hour after the incident occurred, Seattle police said.
Alexis also told police he was present during “the tragic events of September 11, 2001” and described “how those events had disturbed him.”
Detectives later spoke with Alexis’ father, who lived in New York at the time. He told them Alexis had anger management problems associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. He also said that his son had been an active participant in rescue attempts on September 11, 2001.
Alexis was also arrested in Fort Worth, Texas in 2010 for discharging a firearm in public.
Thirteen people, including a gunman, were killed in the attack on office workers at the heavily secured military installation, the Washington Navy Yard, in the heart of the nation’s capital Monday morning.
Police were looking for one other possible gunman wearing a military-style uniform.
Investigators said they had not established a motive for the shooting rampage, which unfolded less than four miles from the White House. As for whether it may have been a terrorist attack, Mayor Vincent Gray said: “We don’t have any reason to think that at this stage.”
An official said Alexis is believed to have gotten into the Navy yard by using someone else’s identification card.
CBS News says Alexis was carrying the ID belonging to Rollie Chance, who was placed on Administrative Leave last October. Chance said he does not know Alexis.
The FBI is looking for anyone who might have information regarding Alexis.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.