Report: Navy Yard Shooter Called Newport Police About 'Hearing Voices' Last Month
BOSTON (CBS/AP) – The gunman who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard Monday was in Rhode Island last month and called police about hearing voices.
According to a Newport Police report obtained by WBZ-TV, Aaron Alexis was in town in August and called them claiming voices were harassing him in his hotel room at the Marriott.
According to the incident report, Alexis told officers he has never had "any sort" of mental episode and claimed he had switched hotels twice because voices were speaking to him through the walls.
On the evening of August 6th, Alexis checked into a room at the Residence Inn in Middletown. He'd apparently gone there on business, according to what he would later tell authorities, but he quickly checked out, later telling police that he had had a fight with a man at the airport on his way to R.I. from Virginia. Alexis said that man had "sent three people to follow him and keep him awake by talking to him and sending vibrations into his body."
Alexis switched to a hotel located right on the Newport Naval Base, but he said that the voices were still reaching him through the walls and the floor.
Finally he checked into the Newport Marriott on America's Cup Avenue, but he couldn't take it any longer. He called Newport Police to come to his room, where he told them "the individuals are using 'some sort of microwave machine' to send vibrations through the ceiling, penetrating his body so he cannot fall asleep."
Police learned Alexis was a contractor with connections to the Navy, so they contacted the Naval Station Police and faxed them their report. Naval authorities said they would follow up.
Alexis, 34, a former Navy reservist, had been undergoing treatment for hearing voices in the weeks before Monday's shooting rampage, but was not stripped of his security clearance, officials said Tuesday.
He used a valid pass to get into the highly secured installation Monday morning and started firing inside a building, the FBI said. He was killed in a gun battle with police.
The motive for the mass shooting -- the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the attack at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 -- was a mystery, investigators said.
U.S. law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that there was no known connection to terrorism and that investigators have found no manifesto or other writings suggesting a political or religious motive.
Alexis had been suffering a host of serious mental problems, including paranoia and a sleep disorder, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation was still going on.
WBZ-TV's Jim Armstrong contributed to this report.
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