The suspected shooter ,
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was on a ventilator and unconscious in a
hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army’s
sprawling Fort Hood ,
post officials said. In the early chaos after the shootings,
authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that
he had survived.
In Washington, a senior U.S.
official said authorities at Fort Hood initially thought one of the
victims who had been shot and killed was the shooter. The mistake
resulted in a delay of several hours in identifying Hasan as the
alleged assailant.
Authorities have not ruled
out that Hasan was acting on behalf of some unidentified radical group,
the official said. He would not say whether any evidence had come to
light to support that theory.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that were under investigation.
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.
Fort Hood Lt. Gen. Bob Cone praised the soldiers for their quick reaction. "God bless these soldiers," Cone said. "As horrible as this was it could have been worse."
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 will also 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 Cook, 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.
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.
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 Hutchinson,
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, told Fox News he 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.
For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, in July, the 39-year-old Army major 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. He 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.
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials 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.
article: PBNA and AP / video: youtube.com
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