Milley said the soldier, who later killed himself, had served in Iraq for four months in 2011 and had arrived at Fort Hood in February from another military installation in Texas. Milley said the gunman —identified by two Central Texas U.S. congressmen as Ivan Lopez — was receiving treatment for depression and anxiety and had reported receiving a traumatic brain injury, though he wasn’t wounded in action, Milley said. The soldier was being assessed for possible post-traumatic stress disorder.
He used a semiautomatic .45-caliber pistol that wasn’t registered with post authorities as it should have been, Milley said. All of the victims were military personnel, he said.
Milley said the soldier fired shots at a medical building near a transportation battalion area, then got into a car and continued firing from there. He then went into another building and opened fire again.
Officials said that the gunman shot and killed himself after a military police officer approached him in a parking lot. “It was clearly heroic what she did,” Milley said of the military police officer.
Milley said behavioral health programs on the post would need to be re-examined.
“There is no indication that this incident is related to terrorism, although we are not ruling anything out,” Milley said. The gunman lived in the area, he said, and was married and had a family.
Milley spoke at a scene eerily reminiscent of the nighttime press conference after the Nov. 5, 2009, mass shooting at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded. That gunman, former Maj. Nidal Hasan, told jurors, who sentenced him to death last year, that he was motivated by religious extremism and sought to protect the Taliban.
“The scenes coming from Fort Hood today are sadly too familiar and still too fresh in our memories,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “No community should have to go through this horrific violence once, let alone twice.”
The shooting sent the post of almost 50,000 soldiers into a nearly five-hour lockdown as distraught family members searched for news of their loved ones. As in the Hasan shooting, initial reports said there might be multiple suspects, which again turned out to be incorrect. Fort Hood officials were slow to release details, which were eventually filled in by U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, and John Carter, R-Round Rock.
Carter said that Lopez was an active-duty truck driver and that he killed himself at the scene after shooting other soldiers.
“It’s as bad a tragedy as the first one in some ways,” Carter said. “You expect your fellow soldier to be the guy that has your back, not the one that shoots you.”
McCaul told reporters that it is “way too early” to know the shooter’s motive.
Several patients were taken at Scott & White Hospital in Temple, the highest-level trauma center in the region, with conditions ranging from “stable to quite critical,” according to Dr. Glen Couchman, chief medical officer at the hospital. He didn’t have details on their injuries. He indicated that two more patients were being flown in and that all had gunshot wounds. Couchman said the hospital is “well-stocked” with blood and blood products.
President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday evening to “get to the bottom” of the shooting.
“Obviously this reopens the pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago,” he said. “Obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the entire community, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure the community at Fort Hood has what it needs to deal with the current situation but also any potential aftermath.”
While the post was locked down, a Fort Hood soldier who answered the phone at a building near the shooting said, “We’re camping out. … The only guidance we’ve been given is to hunker down.”
A specialist, who wouldn’t give his name because he was unauthorized to talk to the media, said he wasn’t worried when he learned of an active shooter despite being on post.
All members of his unit were accounted for quickly, and he said he spent most of the lockdown sleeping.
“You figure they’d be better now at security,” he said.
At 8:50 p.m., sirens at Fort Hood went off, signaling the end of the lockdown. Cars immediately began pouring out of Fort Hood’s main gate.
Retired Sgt. 1st Class Vincent Robinson waited as cars filed out to pick up his wife, a first sergeant still on active duty.
“My heart was beating fast,” Robinson said about when he had first heard of the shooting. “I thought about 2009 and I was scared. Not just for her, but the other soldiers.”
Tayra Dehart, whose husband is a sergeant stationed at Fort Hood, said she heard of the shooting on the news and headed to the post.
“I am a nervous wreck right now,” said Dehart, who is pregnant.
Her husband, who she wouldn’t name, last spoke to her around 5:30 p.m. Though he sounded nervous, he told her he was safe, she said.
A girlfriend of a private first class stationed on post, who said she didn’t want to be named, said she was unable to communicate with her boyfriend after she learned of the shooting.
“That’s the scariest thing of all,” she said.
©2014 Austin American-Statesman, Texas