NASP shooting 'still open and active'

QUANTICO, Va. - The investigation into the Dec. 6, 2019, shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., that left four people dead - including the shooter, a Saudi military aviation student - and wounded eight people “is still open and active,” according to a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) e-mail of April 13, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported in an exclusive story in today's edition. The e-mail was in response to an April 9 e-mail seeking an update of the newspaper’s initial Dec. 7, 2019, letter requesting documents from NCIS and Navy under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The newspaper asked for information on the shooter, Saudi Air Force 2nd Lt. Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani, and all other Saudi aviation students on base at the time of the shooting. Both agencies rejected initial and subsequent requests for documents; but the Navy’s Office of Judge Advocate General (JAG) did leave a glimmer as to the potential future release of documents related to the shooting. G.E. Lattin, director of the JAG’s general litigation division, cited U.S. Code 5, U.S.C. 552(b)(7)(a), which allows withholding “records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes, but only to the extent that production … could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.” Lattin wrote that the applicable code section is “temporal in nature,” which suggests those record requests could potentially be fulfilled at some point in the future, the paper surmised in today’s edition. In another development, the FOIA office of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. - a unified command comprising all U.S. military services whose area of responsibility includes Saudi Arabia - wrote April 9 that the shooting case is still in the review process. “The request is currently #1731 in the USCENTOM queue,” the e-mail noted. “Please contact our office in 60-90 days if a response has not been provided.” In January, the FBI reported that it had “conducted more than 500 interviews and collected more than 42 terabytes of digital media in an effort to determine if Alshamrani was acting alone” and “have not identified any solid evidence that the shooter acted with any co-conspirators or that he was inspired by a specific group.” In a Navy JAG letter of Dec. 23 rejecting the FOIA request, it was noted that “(w)hile Mr. al-Shamrani is dead, it is possible that others may be charged criminally in this case. Likewise, it is possible that other foreign students may be subject to administrative proceedings.” (Source: NW Fla. Daily News 04/14/20) https://www.newsherald.com/news/20200413/nas-pensacola-shooting-investigation-continuing-says-ncis-office.