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Anorak News | Why Aaron Alexis did it: Islam, Noodles, Call of Duty and every other reason on one page

Why Aaron Alexis did it: Islam, Noodles, Call of Duty and every other reason on one page

by | 18th, September 2013

us vido games navy

WHY did Aaron Alexis murder 12 people on a US naval base?

The Daily Mirror knows. He was:

“DRIVEN TO KILL BY CALL Of DUTY”

After the stupid headline, the Mirror’s Christopher Bucktin strafes the page with other facts as to why a man murdered a dozen people:

Nuts: He was “Crazed”.

Games: He had been “treated for mental illness after playing violent video games for up to 18 hours day and night”.

Voices: The 34-year-old told psychiatrists he heard voices in his head long before he went on the rampage at a US naval base and slaughtered 12 people before being shot dead himself.

Moods: He had a “dark side that had previously landed him in trouble with the police on gun crimes”.

Illness: He had “psychiatric problems and arrests for violence”.

Booze: He was a  “hard-core drinker” .

Noodles: “Alexis had worked at Suthamtewakul’s Happy Bowl Thai restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas.”

Paranoia: “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.”

 

Sleeping: “Alexis went to the Veterans Administration last month seeking treatment for ­paranoia, insomnia and possible schizophrenia

Them: “Around the same time he called police to his hotel room in Rhode Island after complaining of hearing voices.”

9/11: “He had also claimed to be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder after helping with rescue efforts in the wake of the New York 9/11 attacks.”

But about those games?

Experts have argued for many years people addicted to violent computer games can be affected by their content.

What experts? Bucktin names not a single one.

Bucktin fails to mention that Alexis was a Buddhist.

Others ask if Islam made him do it? But he wasn’t a Muslim.

Over at USA Today, we learn more of gun-toting Thai waiter:

Alexis would hang out mostly with Suthamtewakul and his Thai friends. “He liked to hang out with Thai people,” he said. He didn’t have a temper but wasn’t afraid to use his fists, he said. Once, a friend of Suthamtewakul’s shoved Alexis over an argument about a girl. Alexis punched him in the nose, bloodying him and drawing the cops to the scene.

Aaron Alexis

Maybe money was a factor?

Michael Ritrovato (below), 50, said he befriended Alexis about four years ago at a Buddhism festival in nearby Keller, Texas. He would see him often at the Happy Bowl. Both fellow New Yorkers, Ritrovato and Alexis talked about jobs and girls and got together at Ritrovato’s house to watch the New York Giants play in the Super Bowl.

“He loved to have fun,” Ritrovato said. “We would have a few beers together.”

But last year, Alexis’ fun-loving attitude soured, he said. After landing a job with a computer company that took him to Japan, Alexis called Ritrovato to complain that the company hadn’t paid him in weeks. Earlier this year, Alexis called again to say his car had broken down and he didn’t have enough money to fix it, Ritrovato said.

Michael Ritrovato pauses while speaking about working with his friend Aaron Alexis Monday, Sept. 16, 2013, in Fort Worth, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

So. Was he violent? Was it suicide?

A lay worker at the Buddhist temple he attended described him as” very aggressive, someone who seemed as though he might one day kill himself”. 

Other theories abound, some racist ones:

Maybe this shooting was done ‘for Trayvon.’

Can we blame a lack of Guns?

 “My son was at Marine Barracks — at the Navy Yard yesterday – and they had weapons with them, but they didn’t have ammunition. And they said, ‘We were trained, and if we had the ammunition, we could’ve cleared that building.’ Only three people had been shot at that time, and they could’ve stopped the rest of it.” So, basically, the civilians of Austin, Texas in 1966 were better prepared to respond to a shooter than the Marines of 2013.

The Wrong Guns?

The New York Daily News responded to the massacre at the Washington Navy Yard with a front page Tuesday that decried one of the weapons suspected gunman Aaron Alexis reportedly had in his possession.

Under the headline “Same Gun Different Slay,” the Daily News used a photo of an AR-15 rifle and asserted that the “maniac” Alexis used the “Newtown weapon.” An AR-15 was used by Adam Lanza in last year’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. Daily News columnist Mike Lupica denounced the AR-15 as a weapon “made for murder” in Tuesday’s issue.

Only,  he never used a AR-15 to kill.

He used a pistol and a shotgun.

He supported Obama, so they say.

More to follow…



Posted: 18th, September 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink