This archive report was first published on 6 December 2019.
On December 6, 2019, a sense of unease gripped the families of Navy personnel at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, as a second shooting in a week occurred at a US Navy base.
At around 11 a.m., Rita, a mother, sat in her van parked in front of a bridge leading to the base, which was blocked off by several police vehicles. Nearby, another mother, Lucy, waited with her two children, expressing frustration at being kept off the base away from her other children and husband.
Lucy's husband had been preparing for a pinning ceremony scheduled for Navy members on Saturday, but she had not heard from him until she called him repeatedly, only to have him tell her to tell their children that he loved them.
Second Shooting in a Week ¶
The shooting at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola was the second in a week, following a similar incident at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Oahu, Hawaii, on December 4, 2019.
At the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, a US sailor opened fire at a dry dock, fatally shooting two shipyard workers and injuring another before killing himself, according to the authorities.
The motive for the shooting at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola is not yet known, and it is unclear whether the active-duty sailor targeted the three shipyard workers or fired indiscriminately.
