Fort Hood massacre -- Army psychiatrist upset over war deployment kills 12 at Texas base

By April Castro; Devlin Barrett

FORT HOOD, Texas - An Army psychiatrist set to be shipped overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post Thursday, killing 12 people and injuring 31 in the worst mass shooting ever at a military base in the United States.

The gunman, first said to have been killed, was wounded but alive and in critical condition under military guard, said Lt. Gen. Bob Cone at Fort Hood. "I would say his death is not imminent," Cone said. Col. Ben Danner said the suspect was shot at least four times.

The man was identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old, eight-year Army veteran from Virginia.

President Barack Obama called the shooting at the Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening, "a horrific outburst of violence."

There was no official word on motive. Hasan had transferred to Fort Hood in July from Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received a poor performance evaluation, military officials said.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said generals at Fort Hood told her that Hasan was about to deploy overseas.

Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he had worked with Hasan, said Hasan was being sent to Afghanistan.

Lee said Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.

The shooting began at about 1:30 p.m. Hasan used two handguns during the attack, Cone said.

After Hasan began firing, he was shot by a police officer, who also was wounded, Cone said.

It was unclear if Hasan acted alone. Cone said three soldiers who'd been taken into custody as possible accomplices had been released. Cone said that while there was nothing suggesting terrorism, "I couldn't rule that out."

Video from the scene showed police patrolling the area with handguns and rifles, ducking behind buildings for cover. Sirens could be heard wailing while a woman's voice on a public-address system urged people to take cover.

"I was confused and just shocked," said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. "Overseas you are ready for it. But here you can't even defend yourself."

Soldiers at Fort Hood don't carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises.

"As a matter of practice we do not carry weapons," Cone said. "This is our home."

Rev. Greg Schannep was about to head into a graduation ceremony when a man in uniform approached him, warning him that someone had opened fire. Schannep heard three volleys of gunfire and saw people running.

"There was a burst of shots and more bursts of shots and people running everywhere," said Schannep, who works for local Congressman John Carter.

The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Their identities, and the identities of the dead, were not immediately released, although Cone said two of the 31 wounded were civilians.

Amber Bahr, 19, was shot in the stomach but was in stable condition, said her mother, Lisa Pfund of Random Lake, Wis.

"We know nothing, just that she was shot in the belly," Pfund said.

The attack happened just down the road from one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. On Oct. 16, 1991, George Hennard smashed his pickup truck through a Luby's Cafeteria window in Killeen, Texas, and fired on the lunchtime crowd with a high-powered pistol, killing 22 people and wounding at least 20 others.

No other shooting at a military base in the U.S. has been anywhere near as deadly as Thursday's. In 1993, a gunman at Fort Knox shot five civilian co-workers, killing three, and then shot himself.

- McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this story

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Religious bias

Claimed he was persecuted

WASHINGTON - Born and reared in Virginia, the son of immigrant parents from a small town near Jerusalem, he joined the Army against his parents' wishes. The Army, in turn, put him through college and then medical school, where he trained to be a psychiatrist.

Details

But Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

He had also more recently expressed concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

"He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy," Nader Hasan said. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there."

He said his cousin had been a practicing Muslim who had become more devout after the deaths of his parents, in 1998 and 2001. But he said he had not expressed anti-American views or radical ideas.

- New York Times

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Originally published by April Castro and Devlin Barrett / Associated Press .

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