the newport rhode island police department, they were called on august 7th by aaron alexis who complained that there were voices in his hotel rooms and changed hotel rooms twice, couldn t get away from voices and complained that somebody was using what he called a microwave machine to send vibrations preventing him from sleeping. the newport police say they passed that onto the duty officers at the nearby naval installation because alexis told them he was working as a navy contractor. our pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski just reported that the navy has checked into this and they believe that that word was never passed beyond that naval station in rhode island, never reached naval officials at the navy headquarters in washington. all right, thank you for those details. joining me now from capitol hill, casey, you were on yesterday and obviously the continued conversation, background checks because he did manage to purchase a gun despite these episodes. the nra pushes back on
it s still not 100% certain how he got the gun through all the levels of security, but it appears that when he got to the building itself, he just sort of shot his way in and during the process of that, picked up the o other weapons. there s sort of questions about why he was able to get a security clearance that allowed him to work as a navy contractor, but it s not obvious that there were any things that would have disqualified him from that. the run-ins that he had with the police in georgia, in washington state and in texas did not involve serious charges. they wouldn t have disqualified him from buying a gun. he did receive treatment from the va for some mental health issues for some psychiatric problems, but it s not clear that the va was required to report that to the people who were doing the security clearance. so there s a lot of questions about how the system works, but in any event, unlike, say, the
hotel, where they believe that aaron alexis may have been staying. we know he moved here to washington, d.c. not too long ago, sometime this spring to take a job with a navy contractor. we also know he was a navy reservist. the f.b.i. is saying that he did have a valid pass to get in the building, but at this point, we don t know whether he actually had reason to be inside this building. we don t know if any of his victims, if he knew any of them personally or not. we are still getting hearing some of the stories this morning from some of those victims. only seven have been identified thus far. all of them civilian employees who just came here to the navy yard on a monday morning trying to get started for a regular workweek. many of those who survived yesterday say they re going to have a hard time going back to work at a place they once felt safe. brian: thanks so much. the question is, too, did he walk in with a gun? did he walk in with two guns? did he walk in with a rifle? was
continuing them with security clearances. that will have to be looked at closely. we ll probably talk a lot more about that today. cnn analyst tom fuentes, thank you as usual. background checks really in question right now. one, how did he become a navy reservist with this history? and after he left of the navy, how did he get security clearances a contractor, which ultimately gave him the pass to get into this facility behind us? honorably discharged from the navy, right? that s right. after a time after after a pattern of misconduct zp then became a navy contractor with clearance. how did he gain that special security clearance with his background? these are the questions we re asking about the perpetrator today, even as we re trying to keep the focus, as much as we can on the victims of these horrible crimes yesterday here at the washington navy yard. 12 lives cut short. we re beginning to learn some of the names of the victims that
building 197. around 8:20 a.m. on the fourth floor shots fired into a lunchroom where victims were shot and many apparently killed. they won t tell us, authorities, what kind of weapons were used, how many rounds fired or the gunman may have had on him when they took him down. the chief of police told us she s convinced there would have been more victims if they hadn t engaged the suspect. there were multiple engagements inside the building. not just from interior building security but from responding d.c. police officers and park police officers. they had active shooter teams in the building. i don t know if you know this. jennifer griffin will join us in a few minutes. how do you get kicked out of the navy in 2011 and become a navy contractor thereafter? there are a lot of questions that remain to be answered. this person had multiple arrests on his record in georgia, in