Long history of security lapses at Washington Navy Yard The Washington Navy Yard, a former shipyard where Monday's fatal shootings occurred, has a history of weak security, with past reports citing poor entrance controls, video dead spots, inadequate lighting, malfunctioning alarms and other problems. Building 197, which houses the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters on the 65-acre campus along the Anacostia River, was the main site of the gunfire in which 13 people died, including the killer identified by police as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas. The tragedy comes during the US Navy's designated National Emergency Preparedness Month. The initiative is designed for members of the US Navy to "be informed, make a plan, build a kit, and stay informed, not just for a month, but every day," US Navy emergency management specialist Jeff Sanford said in a personnel newsletter earlier this month. SAFE: Two men embrace at a gathering point for family members of Navy Yard employees. Picture: Win McNamee/Getty Images/AFP Source: AFP James Atkinson, a former military intelligence officer who heads Granite Island Group in Gloucester, Massachusetts, said the Navy hired his surveillance security firm in 2009 to test newly installed electronic security gates and other access controls inside Building 197. The "controlled penetration" test revealed that a tamper sensor wasn't working because of a design defect and that hardware-store-variety screws had been used to secure the main access-control panel instead of more expensive screws that could be loosened only with a specific screwdriver, Atkinson said. "We found not only had people opened it up, but there were traces that somebody had placed a device inside that was recording data, so somebody could hoax the unit and claim to be a person they were not," Atkinson said. More broadly, in two dozen investigations over previous years, Atkinson's firm found major security lapses throughout the facility, such as doors jammed open with pieces of cardboard, "crisscrossed" video cameras pointed at one another, too few cameras and bad lighting at night. "The security there is extraordinarily poor," Atkinson said. They need more cameras, better door security, better lighting. The access controls were appalling. The Washington Navy Yard has security that is below the level of security you see at Harvard or MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) or Boston University or any other major campus. TIME is also reporting that contractor security at a number of Navy sites (including the Washington base) had been cut back because of budgetary concerns. Mo Schumann, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss security at the Washington Navy Yard, but he said there have been broader security upgrades at military facilities. "Since the shootings at Fort Hood, the Department of Defense has taken a number of steps to harden our facilities and establish new systems to prevent and respond to active shooter threats," Schumann said, referring to a 2009 shooting at an army base in Texas in which 12 people were killed and 31 were wounded. Families of the victims of the Fort Hood shooting file past a memorial for the fallen after a speech by USA President Obama at Fort Hood, Texas, November 2009. A midlevel civilian employee who has worked at the Navy Yard for more than a decade said security upgrades are long overdue. "They'll check your badge and they'll check your car to make sure it has a Naval District of Washington current sticker, but you can drive through the base with a bazooka in your trunk and they wouldn't know," said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly. "They don't check inside the car," he said. You can drive in with a ham sandwich, a banana and a pistol in your lunch bag, and they don't check. It's pretty bad. The Navy Yard is part of the Washington's Waterfront region, a neighbourhood in transition with Nationals Stadium, home of the Washington Nationals baseball team, on its edge; condominium buildings going up; and new restaurants and bars opening. Even though the Navy Yard is a military facility, security is tighter at some non-military campuses in the Washington region. At the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for example, every visiting car is stopped, its underside is examined with mirrors, and guards sweep the trunk and cabin interior. After its founding in 1799, the Navy Yard was the nation's biggest shipyard, making military ships and munitions that served in major conflicts through World War II. It is now one of the Navy's procurement hubs, buying parts and materials to build and maintain the nation's fleet of ships and submarines. A police boat patrols near the scene of the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. Under military base consolidations over the past decade, several intelligence agencies have leased offices there, among them the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, so some areas of the Navy Yard require higher security clearances to enter. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which is helping the FBI, Washington police and other law enforcement agencies probe the shootings, also has a large centre at the Navy Yard. The site is also home to some of the service's top brass, including the chief of naval operations, who lives on the grounds. A retired admiral, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to provide honest assessments, said the public has some access to the Navy Yard to visit the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, and there is a new waterfront park along its southern border. "They've always tried to find the sweet spot between enhanced security and providing access," the admiral said. If people wanted to come up (the river) in a dingy and go over the seawall, it wouldn't be overly challenging. But that's true in a lot of (military) facilities. There are access points to Fort McNair and Fort Myer with relatively low walls that are patrolled episodically. We have not garrisoned our military installations. In fact, there is a whole school of thought that says, why make military facilities hard targets when terrorists are more likely to hit an elementary school or a hospital. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's representative in the House, disagreed with the detractors. "The facility is one of the most secure facilities in the District of Columbia," she said.