Suspect in Fatal Shooting at Florida Navy Base Was a Saudi Military Member

A Saudi national visiting the United States for military training was the suspect in a shooting attack at a U.S. Navy base in Florida in which four people were killed on Friday, three U.S. defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Four people including the shooter were killed in the episode at Naval Air Station Pensacola, the Navy and local sheriff’s office said, the second deadly shooting at a U.S. military installation this week.

Investigators and base commanders provided few details about the incident at a morning news conference, declining to answer any questions about the shooter’s identity or the weapon used in the attack, which played out over two floors in classroom building at a base whose main function is training.

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The first reports of an “active shooter” on the base came through to the Escambia County sheriff’s office at about 6:51 a.m., officials said.

A few minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot the shooter in a classroom on the base, Sheriff David Morgan said at the news conference.

“Walking through the crime scene was like being on the set of a movie,” Morgan said.

The three defense officials, who were not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation, said the suspected shooter was on the base for training but said they could provide no additional information.

In recent weeks, 18 naval aviators and two aircrew members from the Royal Saudi Naval Forces were training with the U.S. Navy, including a stint at Pensacola, according to a Nov. 15 press release from the Navy. It was not clear if the suspected shooter was part of that delegation.

The delegation came under a Navy program that offers training to U.S. allies, known as the Naval Education and Training Security Assistance Field Activity.

The Saudi trainees went “through the same student naval aviator or aircrew training that their U.S. Navy counterparts experience,” the press release said.

Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to questions.

Two sheriff’s deputies were injured, one shot in the arm, the other in the knee, but both were expected to survive, officials said at the news conference.

Eight people were taken to Baptist Hospital for treatment, hospital spokeswoman Kathy Bowers said.

Sheriff’s officials said one of the three victims died after being taken to the hospital, but it was unclear whether that victim was one of the eight who arrived at Baptist. Bowers declined to say.

While military bases house the nation’s most powerful armaments, military personnel normally are restricted from carrying weapons on base unless they are part of their daily duties. Nonetheless U.S. military bases have seen deadly mass shootings before, including one in Ford Hood, Texas, in 2009 that left 13 dead and one at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013 that killed 12.

President Donald Trump said on Twitter that he had been briefed and spoken with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

On Wednesday, a sailor shot three civilians at the historic Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before taking his own life.

The Pensacola base, which is near Florida’s border with Alabama, is a major training site for the Navy and home to its aerobatic flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. The base employs more than about 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel, according to the base’s website.

Pensacola Mayor Grover Robinson said at the news conference that the base is “an incredibly important part of our community.”

“We’re a military town,” he said. “Our hearts and prayers are connected to all of those that serve us every day.”

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(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York and Idrees Ali and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Steve Orlofsky)

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