A family from
Alabama believes they had a frightening encounter with Navy Yard shooter
Aaron Alexis last month while flying from a Virginia airport when an enraged man accused them of laughing at him.
The stranger delivered a rant filled with profanities and at least
one racial epithet because he thought the family, including a
wheelchair-bound woman, was laughing at him in the Norfolk airport on Aug. 4.
"It was a disturbing type of behavior," Glynda Boyd told ABC News. "I
felt fear. A sense of fear because it was off. He looked like he was
puzzled, something was wrong. You could tell his behavior, something
wasn't right with him mentally."
Boyd said the scary confrontation, first reported by FoxNews.com, was
triggered by an inside joke at Norfolk Airport among the family that
included her brother and aunt. Her wheelchair-bound aunt Rosalind Baugh
laughed loudly, which drew the attention of the man she is certain was
Alexis, she said.
Alexis angrily approached the group, demanding to know why they were
laughing at him. Things quickly escalated with Alexis screaming
profanities and motioning at his side as though he were carrying a
weapon.
Boyd said Alexis screamed numerous curses at the family standing no
more than two feet from them and used the N-word. Both the family and
Alexis are black. Boyd said when she saw Alexis' picture on TV following
the shooting, she screamed.
"I turned on the television and I saw his face on the news and I just
screamed, 'Oh my God, that's him, oh my God,'" Boyd said. "And I just
started screaming and I did not go to sleep. Did not sleep, couldn't
because it just kept playing back in my mind, my encounter with him and
my family."
Three days after the incident, Alexis filed a police report in Rhode
Island, stating he had argued with a person at an airport in Virginia
and that individual "sent three people to follow him" and that they were
harassing him with a microwave machine.
Alexis, a 34-year-old former Navy reservist, opened fire Monday at
the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., killing 12 people and injuring eight
others. Alexis' past is filled with documented anger issues, outbursts
and violence long before he walked into the Navy Yard complex.
A federal law enforcement
official confirmed to ABC News today that investigators have determined
Alexis was at the airport in Norfolk on Aug. 4 and was involved in a
verbal altercation with another passenger in the terminal.
The official could not say for certain that the incident involved the family ABC News spoke to but said their story rings true.
The family never saw Alexis before he walked up to them and accused Boyd's aunt of laughing at him.
"'Who is that lady? Why she keep looking at me,'" Alexis asked, according to Boyd.
When Boyd explained to Alexis that she was not laughing at him, he remained standing there "puzzled" but calm.
"When he walked away the first time, they automatically started
saying, 'wow he's weird,'" Boyd said of passengers' reaction to the
confrontation in the terminal. "That's when they said things like he
acted like he was snorting bath salts."
Alexis, Boyd said, returned five minutes later and accused Baugh of
laughing at him once more. That's when Boyd's brother confronted Alexis
and told him he was out of line. Boyd said Alexis' demeanor changed and
he became agitated as her brother defended their aunt.
"They ended up having words back and forth because his behavior was
inappropriate," Boyd said. "This young man started to use profanity and
cursing and he was out of control."
Boyd said he kept reaching for his side as if he had something on him
during the heated confrontation. Boyd said she thought Alexis was
trying to indicate he had a weapon, but she felt confident that wasn't
the case because she figured he had to go through airport security. Boyd
moved her family, but Alexis continued to curse at the family and use
the N-word.
"That's the only thing I recall him saying, but he was saying other
things. But that just rang out in my mind. I could hear him saying
that," she said.
Three to four security officers arrived on the scene and spoke to
Alexis and told him if he didn't stop he wouldn't be able to fly,
according to Boyd.
"The people around just had conversations as if maybe he was on some
type of drug, or maybe he needed medicine or forgot to take his
medicine," Boyd said.
Boyd said the situation came to an end when security arrived and Alexis calmly sat near his departure gate.
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