San Diego Navy Base Alert Set Off by Sailor Playing with Airsoft Pistol

A sailor playing with an airsoft pistol set off a San Diego Navy base alert on Thursday. The sailor, who was firing an airsoft gun with another sailor inside barracks at Naval Base Point Loma, triggered the established security response. Those on the base were ordered to shelter in place.

An airsoft gun shoots soft plastic pellets.

“He was actually firing shots of the airsoft pistol out of the window toward a mirror in the parking lot,” Base Commanding Officer Scott Adams told NBC 7 on Thursday. The person who caused the base alert was described as a young enlisted soldier.

A perimeter was set up around the Navy base as part of the response. Navy security personnel at the San Diego base were alerted to the situation around 10 a.m.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) got a call from the suspect, who was not named, when they realized what what was going on. Both sailors involved have since been taken into custody.

The Navy base at Point Loma is near downtown San Diego and is a huge operation. It is home to seven submarines, the Third Fleet Command, the Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Command, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, and a number of other major units. In 1998, due to a downsizing Navy, six different naval installations on Point Loma were consolidated into one as Naval Base Point Loma.

The incident caused the base to shut down for over two hours because the sailor waved the weapon from a barracks window on the sixth floor. Pellet guns are typically used for recreational purposes such as games and simulated combat and are not lethal. The pellet gun was also fired at a mirror in a parking garage.

In addition to someone on the base hearing the weapon being fired, someone on the ground at the base saw it being waved out of the barracks window. Part of what caused the base alert was the fact that the gun looked very real from the ground level.

The most recent fatal shooting at Fort Hood in Texas less than a month ago contributed to the speedy response by law enforcement officials. At the Fort Hood shooting, three people died and 16 others were wounded. At the San Diego Navy base, security personnel were joined by the San Diego police and an FBI SWAT team.

Base spokesman Lt. Commander Steve Ruh told the San Diego Union-Tribune that evidence of the pellet gun shooting was discovered in the garage. Ruh also said it’s against the Navy base’s policy to have a pellet gun.

“We conduct annual training for an active shooter drill and periodic training which allowed our first responders to resolve the situation without incident,” Ruh said.

As of Thursday evening, normalcy had been restored to the San Diego Navy base.