Fox News
Navy Yard Shooting: How Did Gunman Pass Through Security?
Trace Gallagher: Chuck Nash he's a retired Navy captain and Fox News military analyst - Captain Nash always good to see you Sir.
Chuck Nash: Nice to be with you, Trace.
Trace Gallagher: You know this facility as well as many of us do; you've been there several times. Give us an idea, take me through it if you can, Captain, what's it like how easy to get in and if you're not a military member what would you have to go through to get inside those gates?
Chuck Nash: You go through there are three main gates into the facility every one of them is guarded. You present your identification. You're under a security camera when you go in, the guards are armed. Once they verify a 100% ID check, then they'll bring you in if they do random searches of the cars to have you pop your trunk. So a lot of it just depends on the randomness or if they suspect something. This facility it's interesting because a lot of the people who work in the facility used to work in Crystal City and in other areas of Arlington and around the DC Capital area. But security was judged about ten years ago to be insufficient especially after 9/11. So it's kind of ironic that -- that a lot of the people who are there now in that building were elsewhere in the capital region before and now they've been concentrated and all brought into the Navy Yard about ten years ago. Parking on that facility is extremely difficult and the reason I bring that up is that if the shooter decided to drive onto the facility if he had proper ID and drove onto the facility, he would have a parking spot to ditch his vehicle because I'm wondering how he got an AR15 past the front gate. He could have also just ditched the car and run into the building but the closest gate to Building 197 is only about a hundred yards away. So it's not that far from that entrance gate assuming he came in that gate to the front door of the building and then once you're in the building, if you're armed you've got security guards with nine millimeters or thirty eights, and you've got a semiautomatic rifle. You're gonna outgun the first couple you come in contact with and then you're in the building.
Trace Gallagher: And it's an important note because once you're inside the building Captain Nash, I mean that's key because we have reports about the shooter opening fire on people in a hallway as well as opening fire down on people from a 4th floor in a cafeteria. From what you know about getting in and DC police are being very tight lipped about this - there may be victims in two separate areas. Is it feasible plausible in your estimation that we are talking about just one shooter? They were looking for three now looking for two. Is this possible to act alone?
Chuck Nash: Oh I think quite frankly that it is more probable that it is a lone shooter. But because of all of the confusion, they have to go with what they got on the initial evidence which was the security cameras but as soon as you start describing other people wearing uniforms it starts to sound like you have one shooter and then someone else who was possibly in the vicinity of the shooter maybe they're trying to rule that out, they've already got one of the two guys they've cleared that person so. But the atrium that you were talking about that where you're shooting down on people, that building was used for heavy construction of ship materials and things once upon a time before it was converted to an office building. And when you go in there and you get past security pass through security and you do all that, you get to an area where you can look down on this atrium. And so any any shooter who got to the third or fourth floor has a clear field to fire on everything down below him.
Trace Gallagher: Captain Chuck Nash, great perspective on what you know about the building and military analyst. We appreciate your insights, sir, as always, thank you.