WASHINGTON (AP) — The gunman who killed 12 people in last year’s rampage at Washington’s Navy Yard convinced Veterans Affairs doctors before the shootings he had no mental health issues despite disturbing problems and encounters with police during the same
WASHINGTON (AP) — The gunman who killed 12 people in last year’s rampage at Washington’s Navy Yard convinced Veterans Affairs doctors before the shootings he had no mental health issues despite disturbing problems and encounters with police during the same period, according to a review by the Associated Press of his confidential medical files.
Just weeks before the shootings, a doctor searching for the source of the gunman’s insomnia noted the patient worked for the Defense Department but wrote hauntingly “no problem there.”
The AP obtained more than 100 pages of treatment and disability claims evaluation records for Aaron Alexis, spanning more than two years. They show Alexis complaining of minor physical ailments, but resolutely denying any mental health issues. He directly denied suffering from stress or depression or having suicidal or homicidal thoughts when the VA’s medical team asked him about it just three weeks before the shootings, even though he privately wrote during the same period he was afflicted by ultra-low frequency radio waves for months.
