Gunman attacks U.S. base
Published Friday November 6th, 2009
12 killed, 31 wounded in shooting rampage on Texas army base
FORT HOOD, Texas - An Army psychiatrist set to be shipped overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood, Texas, Army post yesterday, authorities said, a rampage that killed 12 people and left 31 wounded 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 stable 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 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, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison 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.
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.
Soldiers at Fort Hood don't carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises.
Cone said initially three people were held, and all have been interviewed. Authorities believe, however, that there was a single shooter.
Covering 339 square miles (878 sq. kilometres), Fort Hood is the largest active duty armoured post in the United States. It is home to about 52,000 troops.
More Newstoday
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (10)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
How can science & this religion mix ? Wouldn't scientific reasoning prove that the beliefs of religious believers are a beyond reason? Especially Muslims, who believe that they are obligated to kill off infidels, and that killing non-Muslims in suicide bombings is like a soldier taking one for the team in battle.Innocent victims & all?
And as far as rights for women - they're way, way back in the dark ages.
How could anyone with these archaic beliefs be considered a real psychiatrist, with an explanation & remedy for many mental illnesses?
Whoever hired him should be fired, & investigated as an accomplis.
There's no way someone who prays to an imaginary "leader" five times a day can possibly be a psychiatrist.
Where did it say he was a religious nut? Are you assuming this because of his name? Many people, military and non-military, religious and non-religious, believe the U.S. should pull out of the war. That does not make them nuts, religious or otherwise.
Assuming he is Muslim, with archaic beliefs, from this article is wrong.
Religion is not mentioned anywhere.
Whatever the reason for the tragedy, blaming it on religion, with nothing to back up the assumption, is not right.
Perhaps Julie Laflm did some extra research on the man that proves her point.
Nidal Malik Hasan was born in Virginia but didn't think of himself as an American: on a form he filled out at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, he gave his nationality not as "American" but as "Palestinian."
He is a graduate of Virginia Tech and has a doctorate in psychiatry from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. While there, NPR reports, Hasan was "put on probation early in his postgraduate work" and was "disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues."
He was a staff psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for six years before transferring to Fort Hood earlier this year. While at Walter Reed, he was a "very devout" member of and daily visitor to the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring.
You may not care about radical islamist religious nuts but some of us do.
Major Hasan, a Muslim who had argued with his comrades against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been trying to get out of the Army, shouted "Allahu akbar" - Arabic for "God is great" - as he launched the attack.
An infantry sergeant at the Fort Hood base said ,"Put whatever politically correct whitewash on this you like, but there is no escaping this was a Muslim terrorist attack on US soil."
I'm sure you probably claim to not be racist Richard and Julie, but you are - it's pretty straightforward. Is it somehow better for Timothy McVeigh to blow up buildings because he's insane, or the Columbine killers because they were bullied? No - because it doesn't matter what reason people use when they kill, they should be made to pay for their crimes. We should focus on the families, and not find racist reasons why we should point fingers....
I repeated what I read in the news. Facts.
If that makes me a racist to you, it justs shows every one where your head is at.
I need not say more. You've already shown WHAT you are.
OK - so in your head, repeating anything that's written (which happens to support your racist view of the world) makes you right and everyone else wrong. I understand, thanks for clearing that up.
All I'm saying is that it doesn't matter what the reasons are behind senseless killings like this, what matters are the victims, the families, the friends and the people impacted by this horrible crime. I'm also saying that generalizing, attaching particular crimes to a particular religion, nationality or race is racist - pure and simple. If you don't realize that when you do generalize like this, it makes you a racist, well that's on you, not the rest of us.
At least I use my head a-n-o-n-y-m-o-u-s m-e, Moncton, and don't have it stuck where the sun don't shine like you.
Maybe if you came up for air more often, and looked about, you might have a different view on things.