Mass shooting near Killeen, Texas
On November 5, 2009, a mass shooting took place at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos), near Killeen, Texas. Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others. It was the deadliest mass shooting on an American military base and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks until it was surpassed by the San Bernardino attack in 2015.
Hasan was shot and as a result paralyzed from the waist down. He was arraigned by a military court on July 20, 2011 and was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. His court-martial began on August 7, 2013. Due to the nature of the charges (more than one premeditated, or first-degree, murder case, in a single crime), Hasan faced either the death penalty or life in prison without parole upon conviction. Hasan was found guilty on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder on August 23, 2013, and was sentenced to death on August 28, 2013.
Days after the shooting, reports in the media revealed that a Joint Terrorism Task Force had been aware of a series of e-mails between Hasan and the Yemen-based Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been monitored by the NSA as a security threat, and that Hasan's colleagues had been aware of his increasing Islamic radicalization for several years. The failure to prevent the shooting led the Defense Department and the FBI to commission investigations, and Congress to hold hearings.
The U.S. government declined requests from survivors and family members of the slain to categorize the Fort Hood shooting as an act of terrorism, or motivated by militant Islamic religious convictions. In November 2011, a group of survivors and family members filed a lawsuit against the government for negligence in preventing the attack, and to force the government to classify the shooting as terrorism. The Pentagon argued that charging Hasan with terrorism was not possible within the military justice system and that such action could harm the military prosecutors' ability to sustain a guilty verdict against Hasan.
Shootings.
Preparations.
According to pretrial testimony, Hasan entered the Guns Galore store in Killeen on July 31, 2009, and purchased the FN Five-seven semi-automatic pistol that he would use in the attack at Fort Hood. According to Army Specialist William Gilbert, a regular customer at the store, Hasan entered the store and asked for "the most technologically advanced weapon on the market and the one with the highest standard magazine capacity". Hasan was allegedly asked how he intended to use the weapon, but simply repeated that he wanted the most advanced handgun with the largest magazine capacity. The three people with Hasan—Gilbert, the store manager, and an employee—all recommended the FN Five-seven pistol. As Gilbert owned one of the pistols, he spent an hour describing its operation to Hasan.
Hasan left the store, saying he needed to research the weapon. He returned to purchase the gun the next day, and visited the store once a week to buy extra magazines, along with over 3,000 rounds of 5.7×28mm SS192 and SS197SR ammunition total. In the weeks prior to the attack, Hasan visited an outdoor shooting range in Florence, where he allegedly became adept at hitting silhouette targets at distances of up to 100 yards.
Soldier Readiness Processing Center shootings.
At approximately 1:34 p.m. local time, November 5, 2009, Hasan entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where personnel receive routine medical treatment immediately prior to and on return from deployment. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan with his unit and had been to the Center several times before. He was armed with the FN Five-seven pistol, which he had fitted with two Lasermax laser sights: one red, and one green. A Smith &amp; Wesson .357 Magnum revolver (an older model) was later found on Hasan's person, but he did not use it to shoot any of the victims.
After entering the building, Hasan went to the first desk to the right of the North doors and asked to see Major Parrish. MAJ Parrish worked in the building (and had been assisting Hasan in his deployment preparations). The worker went down the hall to get Parrish. According to eyewitnesses, Hasan then went around behind the desk and bowed his head for several seconds, before he suddenly stood up, shouted ""Allahu Akbar" !" and opened fire. Witnesses said Hasan initially "sprayed bullets at soldiers in a fanlike motion" before taking aim at individual soldiers. Eyewitness SGT Michael Davis said: "The rate of fire was pretty much constant shooting. When I initially heard it, it sounded like an M16."
Army Reserve Captain John Gaffaney tried to stop Hasan by charging him, but was mortally wounded before reaching him. Civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill also tried to charge Hasan with a chair, but was shot and killed. Army Reserve Specialist Logan Burnett tried to stop Hasan by throwing a folding table at him, but he was shot in the left hip, fell down, and crawled to a nearby cubicle.
According to testimony from witnesses, Hasan passed up several opportunities to shoot civilians, and instead targeted soldiers in uniform, who – in accordance with military policy – were not carrying personal firearms. At one point, Hasan reportedly approached a group of five civilians hiding under a desk. He looked at them, swept the dot of his pistol's laser sight over one of the men's faces, and turned away without firing. While this was going on, an Army Specialist broke a window in the back of the building where MAJ Parrish worked. Two soldiers and Parrish exited the building through the broken window on the east side of the building and escaped to the parking lot, though one soldier severely cut his hand on broken glass. All of this happened as Hasan was still roaming the building and shooting.
Base civilian police Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who had rushed to the scene in her patrol car, encountered Hasan in the area outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center. Hasan fired at Munley, who exchanged shots with him using her 9mm M9 pistol. Munley's hand was hit by shrapnel when one of Hasan's bullets struck a nearby rain gutter, and then two bullets struck Munley: the first bullet hit her thigh, and the second hit her knee. As she began to fall from the first bullet, the second bullet struck her femur, shattering it and knocking her to the ground. Hasan walked up to Munley and kicked her pistol out of reach.
As the shooting continued outside, nurses and medics entered the building. An unidentified soldier secured the south double doors with his ACU belt and rushed to help the wounded. According to the responding nurses, there was so much blood covering the floor inside the building that they were unable to maintain balance, and had difficulty reaching the wounded to help them. In the area outside the building, Hasan continued to shoot at fleeing soldiers. Herman Toro, Director of the Soldier Readiness Processing Site, arrived at this time. Hasan had gone around the building and was out of sight, but still shooting. Toro and another site worker rushed to assist Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman, who was down on the ground north of the medical building. They both took her by the arms and tried to carry her to safety when Hasan returned and aimed his red laser across Toro's chest, but did not fire. Toro took cover behind an electrical box and saw civilian police Sergeant Mark Todd arrive and shout commands at Hasan to surrender. Todd said: "Then he turned and fired a couple of rounds at me. I didn't hear him say a word, he just turned and fired." The two exchanged shots, Hasan emptying his pistol in the process. He stopped, turned, and reached into his pocket for a new magazine before being felled by five shots from Todd. Todd then ran over to Hasan, kicked the pistol out of his hand, and put handcuffs on him as he fell unconscious. LTC Tom Eberhart, Deputy Director of Human Resources, Fort Hood, arrived and entered the Medical Building to help. He had to step over bodies to enter the building's north entrance. He assisted another soldier in performing CPR on one of the wounded soldiers at the building's waiting area. Folding chairs were scattered all around. He noticed a soldier outside the south doors of the building and went to help, removing the belt from the door. The downed soldier was Staff Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford, a medical assistant from the building. He had two wounds in the abdomen and a wound to the scalp. He was unconscious and LTC Eberhart went back into the building to retrieve a folding table. Other soldiers assisted in getting SSG Lunsford onto the table and around the building to the triage area.
Aftermath.
An investigator later testified that 146 spent shell casings were recovered inside the building. Another 68 casings were collected outside, for a total of 214 rounds fired by the attacker and responding police officers. A medic who treated Hasan said his pockets were full of pistol magazines. When the shooting ended, he was still carrying 177 rounds of unfired ammunition in his pockets, contained in both 20- and 30-round magazines. The incident, which lasted about 10 minutes, resulted in 13 killed—12 soldiers and one civilian; 11 died at the scene, and two died later in a hospital; and 30 people wounded.
Initially, officials thought three soldiers were involved in the shooting; two other soldiers were detained, but subsequently released. The Fort Hood website posted a notice indicating that the shooting was not a drill. Immediately after the shooting, the base and surrounding areas were locked down by military police and U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) until around 7 pm local time. In addition, Texas Rangers, Texas DPS troopers, deputies from the Bell County Sheriff's Office, and FBI agents from Austin and Waco were dispatched to the base. U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed on the incident and later made a statement about the shooting.
On November 5, 2010, one year later, 52 individuals received awards for their actions in the shooting. The Soldier's Medal was awarded posthumously to Captain John Gaffaney, who died trying to charge the shooter; fifty other medals were presented to other responders, including seven others who were awarded the Soldier's Medal. The Secretary of the Army Award for Valor was awarded to police officers Kimberly Munley and Mark Todd, for the roles they played in stopping the shooter. On May 23, 2011, the Army Award for Valor was posthumously awarded to the civilian physician assistant Michael Cahill, who died trying to charge the shooter with a chair. In May 2012, Senator Joe Lieberman and Representative Peter T. King proposed legislation that would make the victims of the shooting eligible for the Purple Heart. In the 113th Congress, Representative John Carter introduced legislation to change the shooting designation from "workplace violence" to "combat related" which would make the victims of the shooting eligible to receive full benefits and the Purple Heart.
In July 2014, a memorial for those killed during the attack began to be built in Killeen. The dedication ceremony for the memorial was held in March 2016.
On February 6, 2015, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a press release, in which Secretary of the Army John M. McHugh announced that he was approving the awarding of the Purple Heart and its civilian counterpart, the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom, to victims of the shooting. This is a result of Congress expanding the eligibility requirement under a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. On April 10, 2015, nearly 50 awards were handed out to dozens of survivors.
In October 2018, the Program on Extremism at George Washington University published a case study about the radicalization of Nidal Hasan . The report is based on previously unpublished as well as new sources including primary source documents, discussions with those close to Hasan, and interviews with Hasan himself. The paper concludes that his faith was fundamental to the development of his worldview and his pathway towards radicalization, and that his radicalization followed a linear pathway.
Casualties.
Thirteen people - 12 soldiers and 1 civilian -