DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum 7 dead, 12 injured in Fort Hood shooting

NBC: 7 dead, 12 injured in Fort Hood shooting

SWAT teams battle at least one gunman on the military base

BREAKING NEWS

NBC News and msnbc.com

Updated 3:51 p.m. ET, Thurs., Nov . 5, 2009

At least seven people are dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, the base's public affairs office told NBC News on Thursday.

The official would not give his name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN, which said the person had opened fire on the SWAT team at the base.

KCEN reported that a policeman was among those shot.

KCEN in Waco reported that the second suspect may be holed up in a building on the post.

Greg Schannep, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Carter, told the Austin American-Statesman that he was on the Army post to attend a graduation service. He said that as he neared the entrance of a building where the service was being held, a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.

Schannep told the newspaper that the shootings appeared to have occurred in a complex near a theater where the service was scheduled. He was with the injured soldier, who he said appeared to have been struck in the shoulder but did not have life-threatening injuries.

According to unconfirmed reports, one of the shooters was being surrounded by police in the 42006 building on Fort Hood. That source told KCEN the shooter has a high-powered rifle.

The base was reportedly on lockdown. The Killeen Independent School District said all Fort Hood schools are on lockdown.

Temple ISD is on a "soft" lockdown. Parents will be able to pick their children up at the normal times, though they may experience delays.

FBI agents were reportedly on the way to the post.

Fort Hood is adjacent to Killeen, and 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.


Army spokesman Lt. Col. Lee M. Packnett said he was unaware if security measures were put in place at other military bases.

“At this point I do not know,” Packnett said.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the shootings, according to spokesman Robert Gibbs.

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.

This breaking news story will be updated with more details.


© 2009 msnbc.com Reprints
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33678801/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Man, I think my little cousin is stationed there. I'll have to ask my aunt where he is.

What kind of people coordinate an attack on a military base?

I don't think they are sure if it was military guys or if someone broke onto the base... I'm watching some reports now

man this is sad.. sooo sad

Now they are saying 12 dead 31 wounded.. one of the shooters is reported to be a Army Major,, he has a name that sounded Arab or muslim or something that.. I didn't catch it.

edit

Major Malik Nadal something

A Major did this? For those of you that have never served, a Major is a high ranking officer. - Usually the second or third highest ranking Officer in a squadron of about 200 people. - When I was in the Marine Air Wing back in the late 1990's our Commanding Officer was a Lt. Colonel, and our Executive Officer (Second only to the Commanding Officer) was one rank lower than a Lt. Col - a Major.

Any current or prior service member would tell you that from time to time an enlisted person goes off the deep end and either commits suicide or murders people. But this sort of behavior is not common for a high ranking officer.

They haven't reported ranks yet, but are saying the bad guys were U.S. Army soldiers, plural, but no knowledge yet what they were whacked out about.

Probably psychological casualties of war, PTSD, etc.

CBS reported Hassan is a contract psychiatrist, upset about being deployed to Iraq. Doesn't mean he is not a Major,...

Drug rehab specialist,....

I would rather guess he did not want to face the fact that he was about to support the very force whose mission is to destroy his brethren,...assuming he is of Middle Eastern descent.

OK,... ,....but there IS a reason he lost it.

You may be looking at this from an enlisted man's perspective. - A Lance Corporal can't simply say that he wants out of the service because he has to go to Iraq. - He'd be forced to go or be put in the Brig. - It's a different story with a higher ranking enlisted person - such as a Gunnery Sergeant. - If a Gunny wants out of the service, he'll speak up and get processed out. - A Major would be able to get out just as easy as a Gunny could, if not easier. The military isn't going to make life hell on a Major that wants out before his contract is up. This guy could have simply spoken up and been processed out.
I am not a racist at all, nor do I categorize anybody. I look at this situation, with all the symbolism involved, and I come to the conclusion that he had affiliation with a terror group.


Also, regarding your note that he would have had to have served for a while:
Ascension in rank depends on MOS. - He's a mental health specialist. - He may have joined with the guaranteed rank of 2nd Lt. after 1 or 2 years, then a year later he may have picked up Captain, and then Major. - It all depends on what billets need to be filled. It may have taken him only a few years to pick up Major.

Just heard another snipit on TV... Yup an Army Major was at least one of the perps.. He has a muslim sounding name but was born in the USA to what I think were immigrant parents..

Worse yet, he was an army shrink helping returning soldiers to readjust.. He was about to be deployed to the Middle east.

gees,,,

The news is reporting his family is from Jordan.

I think people need to stop assuming things just because of his name.

My prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy.

j/c

This Hasan guy is NOT dead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_fort_hood_shooting

On my way home from work, I heard an update on NPR (who usually do extensive fact-checking before they report).

As they put it, the guy was:

1. stressed over repeated, constant verbal abuse, based on ethinicity
2. freaked over an upcoming overseas deployment.

They also said (with interview/soundbyte from a base officer) that he acted alone, with 2 pistols. Multiple gunshot wounds. Still alive.


This kind of ... messes with me for weeks afterward. It makes me begin to mistrust my neighbors... and I hate that. I mean... how do you know whether someone you work with/ live near isn't going to be the next one to lose it, and start randomly offing folks he's "known" for years?

And please don't try to tell me I'm being paranoid... there's a reason we all recognize/use the term:


"Going Postal."

i'm in Ausitn....local reports are slightly different...

he acted alone, but they are still looking into that as it is not "intuitive" that so many could be injured by a lone shooter (though Ft. Hood bars people from having guns onsite).

he had a handgun and a semi-automatic weapon

also, previous reports were that he was killed, however he is in stable condition as is the officer who traded the last bullets with him.

that is the latest they are saying down here at least....sad day and i wish he had just used his gun once...on himself.

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/mobile/shooting_on_ft._hood_base

People are going to be tiptoeing around all of this. People are going to say don't jump to any conclusions. What ever. There ARE home grown terrorists and there ARE sleeper cells in this country. We saw how 911 was orchestrated; Assimilate and then decimate. Since we are no longer to use "terrorist" or "war on terror", I'll guess we just call the guy a military insurgent. That shouldn't hurt too many feelings.
-------------------------

By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer Jeff Carlton, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago

FORT HOOD, Texas – Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment, which is Arabic for "God is great!" before the rampage Thursday, which left 30 people wounded, including the gunman.

An imam from a mosque Hasan regularly attended said Hasan, a lifelong Muslim, was a committed soldier, gave no sign of extremist beliefs and regularly wore his uniform at prayers.

Cone said Hasan was hospitalized in stable condition and that investigators hope to interrogate him as soon as possible. In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.

Cone said Hasan was not known to be a threat or risk. He acknowledged that it was "counterintuitive" that a single shooter could kill and injure so many people. But he said the massacre occurred in "close quarters."

"With ricochet fire, he was able to injure that number of people," Cone said. Authorities are investigating whether Hasan's weapons were properly registered with the military.

The motive for the shooting wasn't clear, but Hasan was apparently set to deploy soon and had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said generals at Fort Hood told her that Hasan was about to deploy overseas.

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.

Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of "friendly fire," that in the mayhem and confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.

The gunfire broke out around 1:30 p.m. at the Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening. Nearby, some soldiers were readying to head into a graduation ceremony for troops and families who had recently earned degrees.

Pastor Greg Schannep had just parked his car along the side of the theater and was about to head into the ceremony when a man in uniform approached him.

"Sir, they are opening fire over there!" the man told him. At first, he thought it was a training exercise — then heard three volleys and saw people running. As the man who warned him about the shots ran away, he could see the man's back was bloodied from a wound.

Schannep said police and medical and other emergency personnel were on the scene in an instant, telling people to get inside the theater. The post went into lockdown while a search began for a suspect and emergency workers began trying to treat the wounded. Some soldiers rushed to treat their injured colleagues by ripping their uniforms into makeshift bandages to treat their wounds.

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. Schools on the base went into lockdown, and family members trying to find out what was happening inside found cell phone lines jammed or busy.

"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."

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

The bodies of the victims would be taken to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for autopsies and forensic tests, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that were under investigation.

There also will be a ceremony at the air base to honor the dead.

Jamie and Scotty Casteel stood outside the emergency room at the hospital in Temple waiting for news of their son-in-law Matthew Cooke, who was among the injured.

"He's been shot in the abdomen and that's all we know," Jamie Casteel told The Associated Press. She said Cooke, from New York state, had been home from Iraq for about a year.

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. She couldn't provide more details and only spoke with emergency personnel.

Nathan A. Hewitt, 26, of Lafayette, Ind., was shot in the hip and calf, his uncles Elmo Robledo and Rex Deaton told the Journal & Courier.

Ashley Saucedo told WOOD-TV in Michigan that her husband was shot in the arm, but she couldn't discuss specifics. Saucedo said she and the couple's two children weren't permitted to leave their home at Fort Hood during the shootings.

For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood in July, Hasan worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing a career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. The 39-year-old Army major received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.

But his record wasn't sterling. At Walter Reed, he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. And while he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.

Faizul Khan, a former imam at a mosque Hasan attended in Silver Spring, Md., said "I got the impression that he was a committed soldier." He said Hasan attended prayers regularly at the mosque in Silver Spring, Md., and was a lifelong Muslim. He spoke often with Hasan about Hasan's desire for a wife.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Hasan's aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Va., said he had been harassed about being a Muslim in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and he wanted out of the Army.

"Some people can take it and some people cannot," she said. "He had listened to all of that and he wanted out of the military."

At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.

Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, said law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the case.

The FBI, local police and other agencies searched Hasan's apartment Thursday night after evacuating the complex in Killeen, said city spokeswoman Hilary Shine. She referred questions about what was found to the FBI. The FBI in Dallas referred questions to a spokesman who was not immediately available early Friday morning.

OK then,...it's all good.

It just floors me that our trained soldiers are not allowed their 2nd Amendment rights while on base, thus probably saving many lives in this type of scenario.

Cause one thing is obvious as it always has been. Those that intend to break the law, find ways to achieve their goal regardless of firearms rules and/or laws.

I really hope this dude survives, so we can hear his explanation. Assuming he is honest about it. As a doctor, he has a moral obligation to protect life, so I would like to know what would drive him to take lives.

i really hope he survives so he can spend the rest of his life in a prison. i can't imagine he would be welcomed very warmly by the guards or inmates

Would his acts qualify as treason?

I don't think so, unless a motive can be proven. This guy already has an insanity defense so he's going to get off anyhow.

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

By Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius
Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Published: 8:17PM GMT 07 Nov 2009

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.


Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen".

Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a "stable" condition. Born in America to a Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign up for the US military against his parents' wishes.

But he turned into an angry critic of the wars America was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and had tried in vain to negotiate his discharge.

He counselled soldiers returning from the front line and told relatives that he was horrified at the prospect of a deployment to Afghanistan later this year – his first time in a combat zone.

Whether due to his personal convictions, his stress over his deployment or other reasons, Hasan is alleged to have snapped and gone on a murderous rampage with a powerful semi-automatic handgun after shouting "Allahu Akhbar" ("God is great"), according to survivors. He had earlier given away copies of the Koran to neighbours.

Investigators at this stage have no indication that he planned the attacks with anyone else. But they are trawling through his phone records, paperwork and computers he used before the attack during an apparently sleepless night.

Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army's Combat Stress Control Detachment, it was disclosed yesterday.

It is understood that Hasan had been due to be deployed with members of those units in coming months. Whether he deliberately singled out other combat stress counsellors is another key question.

What does seem clear is that the army missed an increasing number of red flags that Hasan was a troubled and brooding individual within its ranks.

"I was shocked but not surprised by news of Thursday's attack," said Dr Val Finnell, a fellow student on a public health course in 2007-08 who heard Hasan equate the war on terrorism to a war on Islam. Another student had warned military officials that Hasan was a "ticking time bomb" after he reportedly gave a presentation defending suicide bombers.

Kamran Pasha, the author of Mother of the Believers, a new novel relating the story of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, Prophet Mohammed's wife, was told of the al-Awlaki connection from a Muslim friend who is also an officer at Fort Hood. Using the name Richard, the recent convert to Islam described how he frequently prayed with Hasan at the town mosque after Hasan was deployed to Fort Hood in July. They last worshipped together at predawn prayers on the day of the massacre when Hasan "appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous".

But Richard had previously argued with Hasan when he said that he felt the "war on terror" was really a war against Islam, expressed anti-Jewish sentiments and defended suicide bombings.

"I asked Richard whether he believed that Hasan was motivated by religious radicalism in his murderous actions," Mr Pasha said.

"Richard, with great sadness, said that he believed this was true. He also believed that psychological factors from Hasan's job as an army psychiatrist added to his pathos. The news that he would be deployed overseas, to a war that he rejected, may have pushed him over the edge.

"But Richard does not excuse Hasan. As a Muslim, he finds Hasan's religious perspectives to be fundamentally misguided. And as a soldier, he finds Hasan's actions cowardly and evil."

Fellow Muslims in the US armed forces have also been quick to denounce Hasan's actions and insist that they were the product of a lone individual rather than of Islamic teachings. Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.

But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.

"I told him, 'There's something wrong with you'. I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan's request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.

Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday's massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.

At Fort Hood, he told a colleague, Col Terry Lee, that he believed Muslims should rise up against American "aggressors". He made no attempt to hide his desire to end his military service early or his mortification at the prospect of deployment to Afghanistan. "He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there," said his cousin, Nader Hasan.

Yet away from his strident attacks on US foreign policy, he came across as subdued and reclusive – not hostile or threatening. Soldiers he counselled at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington praised him, while at Fort Hood, Kimberly Kesling, the deputy commander of clinical services, remarked: "Up to this point, I would consider him an asset."

Relatives said that the death of Hasan's parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. "After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran," his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

"He didn't have a girlfriend, he didn't dance, he didn't go to bars."

His failed search for a wife seemed to haunt Hasan. At the Muslim Community Centre in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, he signed up for an Islamic matchmaking service, specifying that he wanted a bride who wore the hijab and prayed five times a day.

Adnan Haider, a retired professor of statistics, recalled how at their first meeting last year, a casual introduction after Friday prayers, Hasan immediately asked the academic if he knew "a nice Muslim girl" he could marry.

"It was a strange thing to ask someone you have met two seconds before. It was clear to me he was under pressure, you could just see it in his face," said Prof Haider, 74, who used to work at Georgetown University in Washington. "You could see he was lonely and didn't have friends.

"He is working with psychiatric people and I ask why the people around him didn't spot that something was wrong? When I heard what had happened I actually wasn't that surprised."

Indeed, many of the characteristics attributed to Hasan by acquaintances – withdrawn, unassuming, brooding, socially awkward and never known to have had a girlfriend – have also applied to other mass murderers.

Hasan was born and brought up in Virginia to parents who ran restaurants after emigrating to America from the West Bank. He graduated from Virginia Tech university – coincidentally, the scene of the worst mass shooting in US history in 2007 – with a degree in biochemistry and then joined the army, which trained him as a psychiatrist.

Relatives said that he was subjected to increasingly ugly taunts about his religion and ethnicity from other soldiers after the September 11 attacks. But his uncle insisted yesterday that Hasan would not have been driven to mass murder by revenge or religion.

Speaking in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Mr Hamad said his nephew "loved America" and could only have been caused to snap by an as yet unexplained factor. "He always said there was no country in the world like America," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "Something big happened to him in Texas. If he did it – and until now I am in denial – it had to have been something huge because revenge was not in his nature."

•Additional reporting by Adrian Blomfield in al-Bireh


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...terrorists.html

Thanks for posting that Dave,...perhaps treason charges can stick.

Can't help wondering why I had to read it in a UK newspaper. Is the American media lazy and inneffectual, or are they so totally hamstrung by political correctness that they would not print a story like this?

.. " hamstrung by political correctness that they would not print a story like this?.. "



... Bingo ! .. To a point where it is almost scary

That's exactly it.

You really don't have to go to UK media to get this story. Just watch a US news station not named MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, or CNN. Hearing about stories in Newsweek and the NY Times inferring our military is at the brink of going postal and that this was post traumatic stress related is utter stupidity, The guy didn't do anything anything yet. These guys are inventing pre-post traumatic stress.

This country's PC love affair will aide in its downfall. Even if the military considered all the red flags this guy may have given off, what could they do about it without extreme lash back? Its sickening that this country is willing to risk 233 years of existence because it might offend or hurt somebody's feelings.