USS Mahan Shooting ROI Made Public
The Navy’s report of investigation (ROI) concerning of the shooting at the USS Mahan – is now public. The incident occurred 1 year ago today.
For those that may have forgotten, in that incident an unauthorized individual managed to get on base at Norfolk Naval Station. That individual then went to the USS Mahan and wrestled a gun away from a petty officer on watch at the ship. MA2 Mark A. Mayo then struggled with the intruder in an attempt to disarm them. Unfortunately, Mayo was killed during the attempt. The shooter was then killed by other security personnel.
MA2 Mayo was afterwards posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his actions that day.
The ROI indicates that the investigation could not determine the shooter’s motive and intent. But while the ROI doesn’t tell us the “why”, the ROI documents a slew of improper and/or negligent actions on the part of base security personnel. Specifically, it notes that the civilian guards manning Norfolk Naval Station’s Gate 5 (the gate thru which the shooter entered) during the incident:
• did not verify the shooter’s authorization to enter the base;
• did not ensure the shooter made a U-turn at the gate and departed;
• did not activate barriers that would have kept the shooter from entering;
• did not chase after the shooter quickly enough when he got through the gate;
• did not notify Naval Station security of the intruder; and
• did not follow any of the base’s standard procedures for an unauthorized entry onto Naval Station Norfolk.
It also turns out it was the senior individual on duty at Gate 5 who waved the shooter onto the base. So you have to wonder about the supervision for that group, too.
So, what punishment did these folks get? Are they at least “on the street and looking for work”?
Hardly. They all got “red tagged” (put on administrative duty) – though it’s also possible they might face “future disciplinary action”. According to the article linked above:
There were five sentries on duty at the gate at the time of the shooting and all were put on administrative duty, which the Navy calls being red-tagged. According to a Navy spokesperson, one of those sentries was red-tagged for a week, two were red-tagged for two months, and a fourth was red-tagged for four months.
The fifth sentry was the Officer-in-Charge and was the one who knowingly waved Savage through Gate 5 without proper identification, according to the Navy. He remains red-tagged and is not allowed to carry a weapon.
The list of corrective actions taken after the incident is available here; the full ROI can be found here. While I haven’t read the ROI in detail yet (it’s over 100 pages), what I’ve skimmed so far looks bad. Seriously bad.
RIP, MA2 Mayo. You did your duty that day after others had botched theirs. You protected your brothers- and sisters-in-arms.
Still . . . it’s a shame you had to pay with your life because others screwed up. A damn shame.
I’ll read that report when I can, but the first thing I saw was that the intruder was waved through the gate with no ID/authorization check.
So why are are civilians at the gate instead of military?
Is it because it isn’t a foreign port and someone things nothing will happen?
Why is it ALWAYS AFTER the fact that corrective actions are taken?
From what I’ve seen, civilian gate security has been the rule at many if not most DoD installations for quite some time, Ex-PH2.
IMO, that’s due to uniformed-side personnel reductions. The base perimeter security mission is an easy one to civilianize or contract out when you have to reduce numbers in uniform.
Having uniformed personnel on the gate is no panacea, though. I have visited Naval installations in the Norfolk area many times during the past decade. At times, they did use sailors for at least some of the gate security force.
Often those sailors (and in a few cases, Marines) were detailed personnel vice trained military police. They often didn’t exactly seem too happy to have been assigned those duties. In many cases that showed in the performance of their duties.
Whether the individual is in uniform or a civilian LEO in such a role doesn’t really matter IMO. What matters is their training, attitude, and professionalism. If any one of those are not right, you risk seeing stuff like this.
As far as the Army goes, most installations went to DoD contractors when the wars started up.
This was because the MP’s were being pulled to deploy in the combat support role instead of the LEO role filled by them in Conus.
Personally, I don’t have an issue with that in the smaller installations like the Ft. Devens Reserve Training installation, but a Sub Base or major Army Base like Ft. Bragg need MP’s at the gates because of the installations importance.
Most MP’S I know can’t stand the DoD guards, even though some of them used them as a stepping stone into regular LEO work.
You answered the first two questions, Hondo, but that only makes it clear that there is no safe place and we have not been living in a warm, safe world for some time now. Even Walmart isn’t a safe place to visit.
I think my question – why is it always AFTER something happens – is kind of open-ended, and there probably is no real answer to it.
You’re probably right about that last. My guess would be because it’s much harder to predict potential problems before they manifest and take actions to prevent them than it is to fix a problem after it has manifested. Humans simply aren’t that good at foreseeing the future. We also like to “cut corners” when we think we can.
But that’s just a guess on my part, and it’s likely only a partial answer anyway.
TBH, I’ll be surprised if they do anything about it even now. “It’s just an isolated incident”, they’ll say. “We’ll brief all of the gate guards to be more careful, and everything will be fine.”
First and most important, rest in peace PO Mayo. I’m proud to call you a shipmate.
Eden, your surprise triggered some memories for me.
I was the XO of a naval unit at New London Sub Base back in the 90s. We had two secure areas: the main gate access to “upper base” and the access to the “lower base (where the boats were).”
Well, some genius decided that it would be no problem to completely remove security from the upper base gates. “Risk management,” they intoned. To their dim minds, the odds of an attack on the upper base were slim. Not none, but slim.
Well, one night I sat down at home to watch the local news and to my surprise (not!), there was a report from the sub base. A reporter was standing on one of the sub piers, sub in background, topside watch looking appropriately confused.
If it hadn’t been so serious, I would have died laughing.
She reported that she had simply walked onto the upper base and then, with little to no effort got onto the lower base.
Of course, the security department solemnly said that this was an “isolated incident” and that they had the situation well in hand.
Then, about a week later, it happened again. But this time, it was just some Joe Blow who climbed the fence to the lower base and got to the boats.
Well, you didn’t have to tell the powers that be more than twice. The upper base was shut down once again.
Just a little insight into how silly some of our “experts” are in deciding how to protect billion dollar assets.
I nearly flipped the first time I saw civilian gate guards, at a SAC base (or what used to be one), no less!! I knew then that it’s a horrible idea to use civilian contractors at the gates of military installations, even stateside.
When we visit our local Air Guard base, our IDs are ALWAYS inspected by ANG security forces. When my husband delivers there as part of his job, his credentials are carefully checked and his semi inspected. And this is security at a land-locked base in the suburbs, NOT a busy seaport.
When we visited other AF bases, our IDs and/or passes were always inspected. NO ONE was ever just “waved through”.
All those responsible should be prosecuted for their negligence in the death of a sailor.
I should add that the last time we were there, our IDs were checked, even though we went through the gate twice in about 10 minutes as we picked up someone else who had arrived at the visitor’s center. The guard could have waved us through, we joked about “it’s us again”, but he did his job anyway.
Sounds like Gowen Field to me. Good security. Worked there in the nineties.
Still looks and behaves like a military base.
I’m really curious what the identity of the shooter was. The fact that they could determine no motive seems to have the stink of “he was Muslim, but that’s not a motive” to it.
It’s in the ROI, Flag. I didn’t mention it because IMO he doesn’t deserve to be referred to by name, even post-demise. He was simply a murderer.
FWIW: the man’s name does not appear to be of ME origin, nor does it appear to indicate the individual was a convert to Islam.
RIP Mr. Mayo, God Bless.
They often use Sailors on the gates on NOB Norfolk. I’ve worked on the base since 06. I personally continue to have issues with the level of security at the worlds largest Naval Base. I’ve had the civilians tell e that I can’t use my retired ID to access the base. They’re a joke for the most part and only work as hard as somebody makes them work. IMO doing away with base decals “because they cost too much” was one level of security that should have been kept. RIP Petty Officer Mayo