Police officers enter the Armed Forces Career Center through a bullet-riddled door after a gunman opened fire on the building Thursday, July 16, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Authorities say there were multiple casualties including the gunman. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
The history of gun attacks at military facilities in the United States in many ways reflects those in society at large: they run the gamut from domestic attacks and drunken fights to politically motivated massacres, including the 2009 killing of 13 at Fort Hood, Texas. But unlike the rest of society, the people who live and work on these posts often suffer from stresses caused by the trauma of war and serving in the armed forces. They often end in suicide.
Here is a brief recent history of shootings on the grounds of military installations.
December 2019: Three people were killed and multiple others injured, including two sheriff's deputies, in a shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. The shooter also was killed, according to the Escambia County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Navy.
December 2019: A Navy sailor shot three Department of Defense civilian workers in the Pearl Harbor Navy Shipyard, killing two of them before killing himself.
April 2019: A female sailor was wounded in a "domestic" shooting in a Virginia Beach, Virginia, base parking lot and security fatally shot the shooter, a male sailor. The shooting took place in a Strike Fighter Squadron 37 hangar parking lot at Naval Air Station Oceana.
July 2015: A gunman killed four Marines in attacks on a military recruitment center and a Navy and Marines reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A sailor died two days later from his injuries. A police officer and a Marine recruiter were injured in the violence. The gunman, identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, died after a shootout with police. Abdulazeez suffered from depression and drug abuse, his family later told The Associated Press. He also had downloaded audio recordings of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-Yemeni cleric who was a recruiter for al Qaeda.
April 2014: Violence hit Fort Hood for a second time, when an Iraq War veteran opened fire on the base, killing three and injuring 16 others before committing suicide. Specialist Ivan A. Lopez, 34, shot himself when he was confronted by a police officer. Lopez was being treated for depression, anxiety and other behavior and mental issues, and was being evaluated for PTSD, military officials said.
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March 2014: A sailor was killed while trying to stop a gunman attempting to board a ship in Norfolk, Va. Authorities say Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Mayo, 24, jumped between the civilian shooter and a another sailor, saving her life. The alleged gunman, Jeffrey Savage, was killed by Navy security forces.
September 2013: Twelve people died and four were injured after a government contractor opened fire inside the Navy Yard complex in Washington, D.C., committing one of the worst attacks at a U.S. military installation since the November 2009 killing of 13 at Fort Hood. Gunman Aaron Alexis, who had just recently begun an assignment at the site, was shot and killed by officers. Authorities later said that Alexis, who appeared to target his victims at random, "held a delusional belief that he was being controlled or influenced by extremely low frequency, or ELF, electromagnetic waves.”
June 2013: An Army captain at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas was allegedly shot and wounded by her common-law husband, Alvin Roundtree at the Army Medical Department Center and School, where she was an instructor. Roundtree is a retired soldier.
April 2013: Lloyd Gibert, a civilian employer at a Fort Knox, Ky. parking lot, was shot to death outside the post's Army Human Resources Command building. A Fort Knox soldier, Marquinta E. Jacobs, was arrested in the killing.
June 1994: Airman Dean Mellberg opened fire at the Fairchild Air Force Base hospital outside Spokane, Wash., killing four people and wounding 23 before a security officer killed him.
