In her statement to the press about the mass shooting at the U.S. Navy Yard on Monday that left 13 dead — including the shooter, who has been identified as Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth — Washington Hospital Center’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Janis Orlowski, expressed her frustration with “these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries.”
“There’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate,” Orlowski said.
“I’d like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would,” she added. “I would like to not be an expert on gunshots and not to be an expert on this. We are. We do it well. Very experienced surgeons. But quite frankly I’d rather they were doing their surgery on other things. And it’s a great city. It’s a great country. And we have to work together to get rid of this because we just cannot have one more shooting, with so many people killed. We’ve got to be able to figure this out. We’ve got to be able to help each other.”
There’s been no official word on how Alexis got the weapon he used. Reports have emerged that the Fort Worth police arrested him in 2010 for discharging a firearm. In 2004, he was arrested in Seattle for what the police department calls an “anger-fueled” shooting.
An amendment to expand background checks proposed earlier this year in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was filibustered, though 54 senators supported it.
