***UPDATE: VIOLENT VIDEO GAME ADDICTION***
If this information holds up then it looks like, once again, we have someone with mental issues that should have been on a list. While this doesn’t speak to the severity of his mental issues, I’d say ‘hearing voices’ in one’s head should have been a big indicator to someone that this man is unstable and unfit to be in a high security area. Of course hindsight is always 20/20…
AP – U.S. law enforcement officials are telling The Associated Press that the Navy contractor identified as the gunman in the mass shootings at the Washington Navy Yard had been suffering a host of serious mental issues, including paranoia and a sleep disorder. He also had been hearing voices in his head, the officials said.
Aaron Alexis, 34, had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the criminal investigation in the case was continuing. The Navy had not declared him mentally unfit, which would have rescinded a security clearance that Alexis had from his earlier time in the Navy Reserves. …
UPDATE: Turns out Alexis had even more issues, including an addiction to violent video games and more…
TELEGRAPH – Alexis, 34, who was shot dead on Monday after killing 13 people at Washington’s Navy Yard, also carried a .45 handgun tucked in his trousers with no holster “everywhere he went” because he believed people would try to steal his belongings.
He also felt racially discriminated against, and believed he had been financially “screwed” over a contracting job in Japan at the end of last year, friends said.
The addiction to violent video games and guns was at odds with his devout commitment to Buddhism, which saw Alexis spending half the day every Sunday meditating at the Wat Busayadhammvanaram temple in Fort Worth, Texas over a period of several years. He also spent a month in Thailand in April, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
…
The darker side to Alexis’s character saw him playing violent “zombie” video games in his room, sometimes from 12.30pm until 4.30am.
Mr Suthamtewakul said: “He could be in the game all day and all night. I think games might be what pushed him that way. He always had this fear people would steal his stuff so that’s why he would carry his gun all the time. He would carry it when he was helping out in the restaurant which scared my customers.”
But he did not believe Alexis had a grudge against the government. Mr Suthamtewakul said he saw mail that indicated Alexis was receiving regular cheques from the government for “some problem with his feet.”