Washington Navy Yard shooting leaves 12 dead, including gunman

The shooter was killed after opening gunfire on police. Officials said police were looking into the possibility of an additional two shooters.

Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray said there had been "at least 12 fatalities" with "a few more additional injuries" at the Navy Yard, which is the ordnance plant of the US Navy and its oldest shore establishment. The 12 fatalities is believed to include the dead gunman, however that has not been confirmed.

Mr Gray said there was "no known motive at this stage" but said there was no reason to think that this was a terrorist attack.

Witnesses described a gunman opening fire from a fourth-floor overlook, aiming down on people in the first-floor cafeteria. Others said a gunman fired at them in a third-floor hallway.

NBC News reported that the shooter was 34-year-old Aaron Alexis from Fort Worth, Texas, who was using the ID of a man who used to work at the Navy Yard.  The news outlet said he was a civilian contractor who was identified through his fingerprints.

A shooting victim is taken off a helicopter and wheeled into hospital for treatment. Picture: NBC

Police arrested the man whose ID was used but are yet to determine if he is an innocent victim or if he was connected to the shooter.

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier said police response had been outstanding and hailed those responders as "heroes."

"The action of the police officers helped reduce the number of dead," she said.

Ms Lanier said that police were still looking for potentially two additional shooters but it now seems that they have been ruled out as suspects.

"We have potentially two other shooters in there," she said at a 2pm press conference (4am AEST).  Ms Lanier said one of them is a white male, aged between 40-50, dressed in a naval-type uniform and carrying a handgun, while a second black man, around the same age with grey sideburns, is in a military style uniform.

Ms Lanier said a call came in at 8:15am about a shooter at the Navy yard and police were on the scene within seven minutes.  Other reports suggest that the initial shooter, who has since been killed, was carrying a military-style AR15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a handgun

A screen grab of NBC Washington's coverage of a shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.

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As emergency vehicles and law enforcement officers flooded streets around the complex, a helicopter hovered overhead, nearby schools were locked down and airplanes at nearby Reagan National Airport were briefly grounded so they would not interfere with law-enforcement choppers.

US President Barack Obama was getting frequent briefings on the shooting.  In a press conference he said he was in mourning for what he called "yet another mass shooting" in the United States that he says took the life of American patriots.

"We are confronting yet another mass shooting and today it happened on a military installation in our nation's capital," he said. The victims "are men and women who were going to work, doing their job, protecting all of us. They are patriots. They did not expect to be attacked at home while in their offices."

Mr Obama promised to make sure, quote, "whoever carried out this cowardly act is held responsible."

The exact number of people killed and the conditions of those wounded was not immediately known. About 3000 people work at the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, which builds, buys and maintains the Navy's ships and submarines and combat systems.

A Twitter picture from the Washington Navy Yard area.

A US Navy commander told Monday how he saw , during mass shooting on a Washington base that left at least 12 people dead.

Navy officer Tim Jirus told reporters a co-worker was shot in the head just a metre away from him.

Mr Jirus told CNN he had evacuated workers in his department after hearing what sounded like "muffled shots'' from a different part of the base.

"It sounded like a cap gun going off. A small calibre, if anything. Then about a minute or two after that, somebody was running through the hallway saying 'Hey, everybody, get out of the building,''' Mr Jirus said. "I wanted to get everybody out of the building. We walked out."

While struggling to understand what was going on, a man from the base's maintenance department spoke to Mr Jirus.

"He walked up and told me he heard there was a shooter in our building. We were just standing here maybe three feet away having a conversation and we heard two more gunshots and he went down. That's when I ran," Jirus said.

A helicopter lifts a person off the roof as police respond to the report of a shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington.

"I'm fairly certain he was dead because he was shot in the head," he added. "It's traumatic. I don't feel lucky he got hit instead of me but I feel lucky to be here.''

Todd Brundidge, an executive assistant with Navy Sea Systems Command, said he and other co-workers encountered a gunman in a long hallway of their building on the third floor. The gunman was wearing all blue, he said.

"He just turned and started firing," Mr Brundidge said.

Terrie Durham, an executive assistant with the same agency, said she also saw the gunman firing toward her and Mr Brundidge.

"He aimed high and missed," she said. "He said nothing. As soon as I realized he was shooting, we just said, 'Get out of the building.'"

Washington Redskins wide receiver Josh Morgan was doing a press conference about his side's lost on Sunday to the Green Bay Packers when he heard about the shooting at the the Navy Yards where his mother works.

A U.S. Park Police helicopter removes a man in a basket from the Washington Navy Yard.

Despite putting in 30 calls to his mum he heard nothing until his cousin tweeted him to tell him she was fine.  It is not the first time that the family has been at the centre of danger - his mother was working at the Pentagon during 9/11 and Morgan was a student at Virginia Tech during the 2007 massacre that killed 32 people.

Rick Mason, a program management analyst who is a civilian with the US Navy, said a gunman was shooting from a fourth floor overlook in the hallway outside his office. He said the gunman was aiming down at people in the building's cafeteria on the first floor. Mr Mason said he could hear the shots but could not see a gunman.

Shortly after the gunfire, Mr Mason said someone on an overhead speaker told workers to seek shelter and later to head for the gates at the complex.

Patricia Ward, a logistics management specialist, said she was in the cafeteria and heard shots. They sounded like "pop, pop, pop," she said. After a few seconds, there were more shots.

"Everybody just panicked at first," she said. "It was just people running, running, running."

Ward said security officers started directing people out of the building with guns drawn.

US President Barack Obama condemned the "cowardly" shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, and vowed a "seamless" operation to administer justice to those responsible.

Police and federal agents from multiple law enforcement agencies responded. Ambulances were parked outside, streets in the area were closed and departures from Reagan National Airport were temporarily halted for security reasons.

Among the wounded was a DC police officer, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorised to discuss an ongoing investigation.

A US Park Police helicopter hovered over the building and appeared to drop a basket with a person onto the roof.

Officials at MedStar Washington Hospital Centre said three shooting victims, two women and a male police officer, had been brought there.

Dr Janis Orlowski MedStar Washington Hospital Centre had been "told to expect more."

"We have heard that there are a number of fatalities at the Navy yard," she told a media conference.

Police tactical units leave after responding to a shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC.

The two woman and one man are all in a critical condition but Dr Orlowski said "their chances of survival are really good."

She said from what the victims have said it appears that the gun was a semi-automatic rifle because the shots were fired in quick succession.

District of Columbia schools officials said six schools and one administrative building in the vicinity of the Navy Yard were placed on lockdown. The action was taken out an abundance of caution, schools spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said.

Naval Sea Systems Command is the largest of the Navy's five system commands and accounts for a quarter of the Navy's entire budget. It builds, buys and maintains the Navy's ships and submarines and their combat systems.

The Navy Yard is part of a fast-growing neighbourhood on the banks of the Anacostia River in southeast Washington, just blocks from Nationals Park and about 2.5 kilometres southeast of the US Capitol.

An unidentified woman is reunited at the family gathering site outside parking lot B of Nationals Park, which has been set as a gathering point for families of the Navy Yard shootings in Washington DC.

Two DC Metro Police officers put their gear uonas they respond to a reported shooting at an entrance to the Washington Navy Yard.