Suspected D.C. Shooter Went on “Anger-Fueled” Rampage in Seattle in 2004

A former Navy petty officer identified as the gunman in Monday's shooting at the Washington Navy Yard was arrested in 2004 for shooting at tires of a car parked near his home.

The alleged gunman, identified by his fingerprints as 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, is one of the 13 people confirmed to have died in the shooting Monday morning.

2004 Arrest in Seattle Due to "Anger-Fueled" Shooting

Seattle police said Monday afternoon that Alexis was arrested in 2004 "for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what Alexis later described to detectives as an anger-fueled 'blackout.'"

In the incident report, Seattle police said Alexis exited his apartment and pulled a handgun from his waistband before firing three rounds at the rear tires of a car that belonged to a man working construction in the area.  

Alexis eventually confessed to the shooting, but stated that the man had mocked him after learning his own vehicle had been tampered with and that the shooting was an "anger-fueled blackout" that he didn't recall until an hour after the shooting. He was eventually booked into the King County Jail on a charge of malicious mischief.

According to the Seattle Police Department, during his interview regarding the shooting, Alexis told them he was present during the "tragic events of September 11, 2001" and "described 'how those events had disturbed him.'" 

Police eventually talked with Alexis' father, who lived in New York, and said his son had anger problems that were caused by post traumatic stress disorder and that he was "an active participant in rescue attempts on September 11th, 2001."

2010 Arrest in Fort Worth

According to the 2010 arrest report from Fort Worth, Alexis' upstairs neighbor called police after a hearing a pop and seeing a cloud of dust come up from her floor; she said a bullet had ripped through her floor and ceiling from the apartment downstairs.

Fort Worth police knocked on her neighbor's door, but there was no answer. As they prepared to enter through force, the man, identified as Alexis, came outside and talked with police willingly. He said he had been cleaning his weapon when it slipped and that he accidentally pulled the trigger.

He said he didn't check on his neighbor because he couldn't see light through the hole in his ceiling and assumed the bullet hadn't passed through her floor. He also said he thought his neighbors would assume the sound of the gunshot was a firecracker.

According to police, Alexis told them he didn't answer the door initially because he assumed it was his upstairs neighbor, with whom he shared a contentious relationship.

Life in Washington, D.C.

While in Washington, D.C., Alexis had begun working as a civilian contractor for the Navy, according to NBC's Pete Williams.

The FBI believes Alexis used another man's identification card to access a heavily secured building at the yard Monday morning. The man's ID was found next to Alexis' body in Building 197, where most of the victims were shot on the third and fourth floors. NBC News reports the man whose ID card was used was later taken into custody and was questioned by police.

Washington, D.C. Site of Another Mass Shooting on a Military Installation

Monday's shooting comes just two weeks after the trial of Nidal Hasan concluded at Fort Hood. Hasan was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier in August of killing 13 and wounding 32 on the Texas Army base in 2009.

NBC 5 DFW's Scott Gordon, Scott Friedman and Ken Kalthoff contributed to this report.

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