Suspect’s Past Fell Just Short of Raising Alarm

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

The American flag flew at half-staff above the White House Tuesday morning.

WASHINGTON — A month before a murderous rampage at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis called the police in Rhode Island to complain that he had changed hotels three times because he was being pursued by people keeping him awake by sending vibrations through the walls.

When officers came to his hotel room early on Aug. 7, Mr. Alexis told them that a person he had argued with at an airport in Virginia "has sent three people to follow him" and that they were harassing him with a microwave machine, according to a Newport, R.I., police report. Mr. Alexis said he had heard "voices speaking to him through the wall, flooring and ceiling," the report said.

Mr. Alexis told the police he was a Navy contractor, and then twice that month he sought treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department for psychiatric issues, according to a senior law enforcement official. But it did not raise a red flag that might have prevented him from entering the military base in Washington where, the authorities say, he killed 12 people on Monday.

The episode in Rhode Island adds to a growing list of questions about how Mr. Alexis, who had a history of infractions as a Navy reservist, mental health problems and run-ins with the police over gun violence, gained and kept a security clearance from the Defense Department that gave him access to military bases, including the navy yard, where he was shot to death by the police.

Time and again, Mr. Alexis's behavior fell below a level that would have brought a serious response, like a less-than-honorable discharge from the military or involuntary commitment to a mental institution, experts and officials said.

But the sheer number of episodes raises questions about the government's system for vetting people for security clearances, including the thousands of contractors who help run the nation's military and security system work. Though the cases are different, the access granted Mr. Alexis, a former Navy reservist who as an independent contractor serviced Navy computers, raises questions similar to those raised about another outside government contractor, Edward J. Snowden, who leaked national intelligence secrets.

"These two incidents combined suggest to me a very flawed system for granting security clearances," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who called for a Congressional investigation into the granting of security clearances to government contractors. "Who knows how many other Snowdens and Aaron Alexises are out there?"

On Tuesday, President Obama ordered the White House budget office to conduct a governmentwide review of policies for security clearances for contractors and employees in federal agencies. In an interview with Noticias Telemundo, the president said the nation did not have a "firm enough background check system." He also called once again for Congress to enact legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and those with mental illness.

"I do get concerned that this becomes a ritual that we go through every three, four months, where we have these horrific mass shootings," he said.

Senior Pentagon officials also said that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel intended to review physical security and access at all Defense Department installations around the world.

Many planets aligned to place Mr. Alexis, 34, at the start of the workday in the navy yard with a Remington pump-action shotgun, firing down from a balcony, the police said, and killing the employees, all civilians.

As an honorably discharged veteran, he cleared a basic hurdle to receive a Defense Department security pass. Despite his being investigated by police departments in Seattle and Fort Worth, for firing a gun in anger, no charges were filed that would have shown up in his F.B.I. fingerprint file. Despite mental health issues — he twice went to Veterans Affairs hospitals last month seeking treatment for insomnia — he was never committed and so was legally able in Virginia to buy the weapon the police said he used in the shootings.

Reporting was contributed by Manny Fernandez and Lauren D'Avolio from Fort Worth, Carl Hulse, Sarah Maslin Nir and Thom Shanker from Washington, Kirk Johnson from Seattle, and Erica Goode, Timothy Williams, Ariel Kaminer and Nate Schweber from New York.

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