D.C. police commanders sending officers to stop the mass killing at the Washington Navy Yard didn't know there was live video showing the shooter's path, because a private security guard had locked himself in the room with the monitors and never told anyone he was there, according to a District police report.
After Action Report – Washington Navy Yard – September 16, 2013
LawOfficer D.C. Navy Yard Shooting Coverage
The inability to see Aaron Alexis move through the maze of cubicles created a blind-spot for police directing 117 officers who streamed into Building 197 and toward the gunfire, and it prevented officials from quickly discounting reports of a possible second shooter. Authorities kept a swath of the District in lockdown for three hours after officers shot and killed Alexis, 34, who was acting alone.
Compounding the problem was that the Navy Yard base commander, who may have known about the cameras in the building, and local police were working out of separate command centers. "We never saw the base commander during the entire incident," D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said in an interview Friday. Left unanswered is why the guard apparently did not try to reach authorities. "The only thing we can assume is that the person froze, didn't know what to do," the chief said.
Access to that video likely would not have saved any lives on Sept. 16 – 10 of the 12 victims were killed within the first six minutes – but may have prevented Alexis from shooting and wounding a police officer, Lanier said.
The lack of access to the live video feed is one of several frustrations highlighted in an 82-page after-action report compiled by D.C. police and obtained by The Washington Post under a Freedom of Information Act request.
The report – aimed at scrutinizing the law enforcement response and helping D.C. police and other agencies prepare for future attacks – details Alexis's movements, as well as the heroics of officers and Navy Yard workers over 69 harrowing minutes. It praised the cooperation between officers from myriad agencies who entered the building in teams, but said there was flaws in the coordination at the command level.
With several agencies setting up command centers outside the building, there was some confusion over who was in charge, and critical information did not reach D.C. police commanders who were directing the second-by-second response. In some cases, needed information, such as building floor plans, were in command buses just feet away, but never reached Lanier.
The report's authors stressed that on the morning of the shooting, officers and commanders were making immediate decisions in a deadly situation. Authorities did not know how many shooters were at work, and early reports suggested it could have been two or even three. Officers who responded first found locked gates and located Building 197 only because hundreds of people were running out of it. Officers who first went into the building took a slain security guard's badge, which got them access to many locked sections, and remembered to prop open doors for officers who followed.
"The actions and decisions of that day were made, often in a split second, in a dynamic and extraordinary environment under extreme duress, facing a multitude of unforeseen challenges and dangers, without the benefit of hindsight," the report said.
The report recommends 76 changes in training, policy and equipment. It found that the AR-15 assault weapons officers carry were too long and unwieldy in the close office confines, so police will also be getting shorter barrel M-4 rifles. D.C. Officer Scott Williams, who was shot in both legs, believes radio transmissions gave away his location, so officer will now be required to wear earpieces. And officers found the formation they'd been taught to use to hunt active shooters didn't work in the narrow hallways and cubicle mazes.
Alexis, a contractor who had worked at the Navy Yard in IT for a week prior to the shooting, entered Building 197 at 8:08 a.m. through the main entrance, using his keycard. He took an elevator to the fourth floor, walked to the men's room, where police said he assembled his Remington 870 shotgun. He exited at 8:16 a.m. and fired his first shots, killing three people in less than four minutes. He killed others on a different floor; by then police were streaming into the building.
He was shot and killed by police at 9:25 a.m. The FBI has said Alexis was driven by delusions and thought he was being controlled by low-frequency radio waves.
A spokesperson for Navy District Washington did not respond to specific questions about why the base commander was not with D.C. police, or why D.C. police weren't alerted about the cameras in the building.
"I can tell you that the Navy Yard leadership is working closely with the Metro Police Department to strengthen our ties and to further develop our joint procedures during crisis situations," according to a statement from the spokesperson, Chatney Auger. "The safety of our workforce is paramount, and as evidence of that we have ongoing discussions with MPD to improve response efforts."
Lanier attributed some of the problems to well-intentioned reforms made after shootings at Fort Hood in Texas. Military bases set up their own emergency call centers, similar to 911, which created confusion at the Navy Yard. But unlike other military bases, the Navy Yard is more like a typical office complex. Its 14,000 workers are mostly civilians and unarmed, including the 3,000 at Building 197, and they're protected by a small Navy police force that had just six officers on duty the morning of the shooting.
"This military bases sits in the middle of a major metropolitan city that has a very large and well-trained police force," Lanier said. "This military base doesn't have a large armed presence." But, the chief said, "We're just as guilty on our side for making the assumption that we'd never have to go in there and defend the base."