Army says 12 dead, 31 injured at Fort Hood

[Meg]

At least 12 people were killed and 31 others were wounded in a mass shooting incident Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, military officials said. The shooter was shot to death, they said. More shots were reported later in the afternoon, reported NBC affiliate KCEN-TV of Waco, which said no further details were immediately available.

A senior administration official told NBC News analyst Roger Cressey that the suspect who was in custody was an Army major with an Arabic-sounding name. The official said the shootings could have been a criminal matter rather than a terrorism-related attack and that there was no intelligence to suggest a plot against Fort Hood.

It was unknown whether the victims were all soldiers or civilians at Fort Hood, one of the largest military complexes in the world. The base was on lockdown, as were schools in the area. KCEN, which quoted a source as saying at least one of the shooters had a high-powered rifle, reported reported that at least four SWAT officers were among those wounded. A spokesman for Fort Hood said the shootings took place at two locations around 1:30 p.m.: the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and Howze Theater. The spokesman, Sgt. Major Jamie Posten, said processing center was where soldiers “cycle through as they prepare to deploy.” That complex is on the West side of post, off Battalion Avenue. Greg Schannep, an aide to Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, who was on the post to attend a graduation service, told the Austin American-Statesman that a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.

The Temple Independent School District was on a “soft” lockdown. Parents were asked to pick their children up at the normal times, although they could experience delays. Agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on their way to the post, federal officials said. Fort Hood is adjacent to Killeen, about 60 miles northeast of Austin. The sprawling complex is home to at least 4,929 active-duty officers and 45,414 enlisted. Civilian employees total nearly 9,000.

A spokesman for the Army, Lt. Col. Lee M. Packnett, said he was unaware whether security measures were put in place at other military bases. A spokesman at Fort Lewis, Wash., said the incident was being treated as isolated.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the shootings, press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban said officials from several federal agencies are still collecting information on the shootings. "Because this is early in this event, we cannot at this time confirm motives behind these shootings," she said.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, said in a statement: “I am shocked and saddened by today’s outburst of violence at Fort Hood that has cost seven of our brave service members their lives and has gravely injured others. My heart goes out to their loved ones.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign spokesperson said the governor was in Denton, scheduled to attend a campaign event, when word of the shooting occurred. There was no word on whether he had left Denton or whether he was headed to Fort Hood.

Milly Land, who works at the base fitness center, said she was headed for the graduation ceremony at 2 p.m. at the Howze Theater when the campus was locked down. She went back to the fitness center. She said she spoke by phone with friends at the soldier processing center, who said a gunman walked in about 1:30, walked to the medical area of the processing center, and started shooting. A second gunman was shooting at the theater next door, she said.

Fort Hood has seen other violence in recent years. In September 2008, a 21-year-old 1st Cavalry Division soldier shot his lieutenant to death and then killed himself. Spc. Jody Michael Wirawan of Eagle River, Alaska, shot himself to death after shooting 1st Lt. Robert Bartlett Fletcher, 24, of Jensen Beach, Fla. to death.

_http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33678801/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001

 

[Voyageur]

CBC News article

The gunman was identified as Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, 39, a military mental health doctor who was about to be sent to war, according to law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hasan, who was born in Virginia and graduated from Virginia Tech, the site of a university mass shooting in 2007. He was also a fellow in disaster and preventative psychiatry in the department of psychiatry at the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine. Hasan worked for six years at the Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he reportedly received a poor performance evaluation, according to officials who had access to his military records. He was transferred to Fort Hood in July.

Did not read this in the original news reel but thought this of interest,

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/11/05/texas-san-antonio.html

 

[pete02]

And now they know more...

By Erwin Seba

KILLEEN, Texas (Reuters) - An Army psychiatrist opened fire with two handguns at the Fort Hood Army post on Thursday, killing 12 and wounding 31 others, Army officials said, adding the suspect was shot several times but survived.

Authorities identified the suspected gunman as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who had treated soldiers wounded in foreign wars preparing for foreign deployment at the post.

"Our investigation is ongoing but preliminary reports indicate that there was a single shooter," Lieutenant-General Robert Cone, Fort Hood's commanding officer, told a news conference. "The shooter is not dead but in custody in stable condition."

Cone said the suspect had been shot multiple times. He had previously said the suspect was killed by police officers during the attack at the biggest military facility in the world.

"He's not currently speaking to investigators," Cone said of Hasan. Pressed on the suspect's condition, he said, "I would say his death is not imminent."

Asked if the shootings were a terrorist act, Cone said, "I couldn't rule that out but ... the evidence does not suggest that."

The Army said the gunman opened fire at about 1:30 p.m. CST at the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center, a group of buildings where soldiers were getting medical check-ups before leaving for overseas deployments.

Cone said the gunman had two weapons, one of them a semi-automatic. "There is no indication that they were military weapons," he said.

It was one of the worst killing sprees ever reported on a U.S. military base. In May, a U.S. soldier at a base in Baghdad shot and killed five fellow soldiers.

Cone said a college graduation ceremony for more than 100 soldiers was being held in an auditorium about 50 yards (meters) away when the shooting started.

"Thanks to the quick reaction of several soldiers, they were able to close off the doors to that auditorium where there were some 600 people inside," Cone said.

"As horrible as this was, I think it could have been much worse," Cone said.

Cone said soldiers as a rule do not carry weapons on the base. Military police and security guards are armed.

SUSPECT SAID TO BE UPSET ABOUT DEPLOYMENT

A cousin of the suspected shooter, Nader Hasan, told Fox News that he had been ordered to serve a term in Iraq and had been resisting such a deployment.

Hasan said his cousin was a U.S.-born Muslim who had joined the military from high school. He had served as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., which treats many badly wounded troops.

"He was a psychiatrist at Walter Reed dealing with the people coming back and ... trying to help them with their trauma," he said.

He said his cousin had been transferred to Fort Hood in April months ago and was very reluctant to be deployed to Iraq. "We've known over the last five years that was probably his worst nightmare," he said.

The incident raised new questions about the toll that six years of continuous fighting in Iraq and nearly eight years of fighting in Afghanistan have taken on the U.S. military and on individual soldiers, many of whom have been on several combat tours.

U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking in Washington, called the event a "horrific outburst of violence" and promised "answers to every single question about this horrible incident."

Fort Hood is home to about 50,000 troops, although Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said only about 35,000 were on base at the time. The fort, established in 1942, stretches across 339 square miles (878 square km) in central Texas and is the state's largest single employer.

Base personnel have accounted for more suicides than any other Army post since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, with 75 tallied through July of this year. Nine of those occurred in 2009, counting two in overseas war zones.

A former FBI criminal profiler highlighted the irony of the suspected gunman's reported expertise as a psychiatrist specializing in traumatic stress, which often affects combat soldiers.

"It may be that he succumbed to that which he was supposed to heal," Clint Van Zandt said on MSNBC.

Fort Hood is halfway between Austin and Waco, about 60 miles from each city. Nearby Killeen was the site of one of the worst U.S. shooting rampages when a gunman drove his truck into a Luby's cafeteria in 1991 and shot 23 people to death and wounded 20 others before killing himself. (Additional reporting by James Vicini, Peter Cooney and Phil Stewart in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles) (Writing by Chris Baltimore, Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

[Laura]

The changing story...

And on Guy Fawkes night, too!

 

[ElizabethDempsey]

I'm taking the liberty of posting this insightful observation from another website:

Ft. Hood Massacre
A military psychiatrist, Major Hasan, an American of Jordanian descent, killed 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas. This is the largest military base possibly in the world.

The Major was a graduate of Virginia Tech, now well-known for its attack by a Korean mind-controlled student a while back. This university is also near the CIA/ NSA training camps.

While the government will attempt to prove that Hasan was actually being guided by Arab militant groups, he is an " Assassin/ Vigilante" programmed person. His act was orchestrated by the Illuminati in order to bump up missions against fundamentalists in Central Asia.

It is very possible that links to Iran will be found and there may be an entire cadre of such "3rd column" infiltrators within the US and Western Europe. These domestic attacks have only just begun.

 

[Buddy]

I'm taking the liberty of posting this insightful observation from another website

Hi Elizabeth. Where does this 'insightful observation' come from? Can you provide a deactivated link? Thanks.

 

[RyanX]

I'm taking the liberty of posting this insightful observation from another website:

Ft. Hood Massacre
A military psychiatrist, Major Hasan, an American of Jordanian descent, killed 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas. This is the largest military base possibly in the world.

The Major was a graduate of Virginia Tech, now well-known for its attack by a Korean mind-controlled student a while back. This university is also near the CIA/ NSA training camps.

While the government will attempt to prove that Hasan was actually being guided by Arab militant groups, he is an " Assassin/ Vigilante" programmed person. His act was orchestrated by the Illuminati in order to bump up missions against fundamentalists in Central Asia.

It is very possible that links to Iran will be found and there may be an entire cadre of such "3rd column" infiltrators within the US and Western Europe. These domestic attacks have only just begun.

I think the link to Virginia Tech might be worth following up. Although, saying it was orchestrated by the Illuminati just pushes this "observation" into the lunatic fringe. The word "Illuminati" is designed to provoke a certain emotional reaction in some people from what I've noticed. The sentence at the end saying that "these domestic attacks have only just begun" sounds like fear mongering. As far as I can tell there is little indication that this is the case. I wouldn't say this is impossible, just improbable at this point.

 

[ElizabethDempsey]

Here's the website from which the "observation" was quoted:

_http://expansions.com/News.cfm

 

[Buddy]

Thank you. This link is to Expansions Publishing Co. I'm assuming it's a business of metaphysical products/services. The statements appear to just come 'out of the blue.' At least I couldn't find any data.

That's no biggie. I was just curious.

 

[Justin]

This story is certainly morphing. There were reports of 2 gunmen in the beginning, and now the media is focusing on only one. The story below indicates that one of the suspects was apprehended without being wounded.

(CNN) -- A senior officer who was playing golf Thursday near Fort Hood, Texas, told CNN he witnessed the arrest of one of the two surviving suspects of the shooting at the Army installation.

Shortly after the shooting, the officer said, military police told him to clear the course and he saw other MPs surround the building that held the golf carts, he said.

The senior officer said he ducked into a nearby house for cover as 30 to 40 cars carrying MPs approached.

He said he saw a soldier in battle-dress uniform, his hands in the air. The MPs ordered him to lie on the ground and open his uniform, presumably to ensure he was not carrying explosives, the senior officer said.

He said an MP told him that authorities considered the man to be a suspect in the shootings after having overheard the man say he was with the shooter.

The man was surrounded for 25 to 30 minutes, until a convoy of vehicles arrived, led by a Ford Crown Victoria and carrying men in suits, and he was taken away, the senior officer said.

The golf course is about 2.5 miles from Fort Hood, the officer told CNN.

_http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/05/texas.fort.hood.witnesses/

 

[Qbone]

Interesting quotes from the Independent..

-http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-army-killer-taken-off-ventilator-1817128.html

Sgt Todd said that seconds after arriving at the scene, he saw a calm-looking Hasan, his gun drawn and his fingers pointing at people outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Centre. He then saw Hasan shooting at soldiers as they attempted to flee.

Then…

His family has described a man incapable of the attack, calling him a devoted doctor and devout Muslim who showed no signs that he might lash out with violence.

"I've known my brother Nidal to be a peaceful, loving and compassionate person who has shown great interest in the medical field and in helping others," said his brother, Eyad Hasan.

"He has never committed an act of violence and was always known to be a good, law-abiding citizen."

Call me crazy but quotes above really makes me think about mind control, MK-ultra or something. It has happened before but this time under the name of Islam to defame Muslim service men! I have no proof just a wild speculations thou.

 

[Voyageur]

Qbone,

Call me crazy but quotes above really makes me think about mind control, MK-ultra or something. It has happened before but this time under the name of Islam to defame Muslim service men! I have no proof just a wild speculations thou.

It is possible that many here, when these things happen, refer to Greenbaum programming; which is immediately what passed through my mind, especially being that he was in the military psychiatric department.

Session 980617

A: Not correct concept. What if: those programmed in the so
called "Greenbaum" projects are preprogrammed to "go off"
all at once, and some "malfunction," and go off early?

 

[agni]

Odd happening. As I was talking with my friend, with a point that the shooting was a good example that many psychopath or people with issues go to field of mental health; on the radio song "Zombie" by Cranberries has started to play. Left me speechless to say the least...

 

[Nicholas]

Just finished listening to Joe on the "Feet To The Fire" radio show (_http://innersites.com/feet2fire/) discussing his SOTT Focus article Reviving the War of Terror.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196533-Reviving-the-War-of-Terror-Patsy-framed-in-Secret-Team-psy-op-to-generate-public-support-for-wars

Great job Joe! Hope this helps drive more people here to SOTT.

 

[Rich]

Just finished listening to Joe on the "Feet To The Fire" radio show (_http://innersites.com/feet2fire/) discussing his SOTT Focus article Reviving the War of Terror.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/196533-Reviving-the-War-of-Terror-Patsy-framed-in-Secret-Team-psy-op-to-generate-public-support-for-wars

Great job Joe! Hope this helps drive more people here to SOTT.

Hi Nicholas, sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the mp3 recording? The 'past shows' link doesn't seem to load.