Thread: FORT HOOD: Four Dead and 16 Injured in Fort Hood and Soldier Assessed as ‘Mentally Il

FORT HOOD: Four Dead and 16 Injured in Fort Hood and Soldier Assessed as ‘Mentally Ill’

By Clash Daily / 3 April 2014
A soldier who shot dead three people and injured 16 others before turning the gun on himself at the Fort Hood military base was ‘not a wounded warrior’ but was being treated for mental illness, a U.S. Army chief has said.
The shooter, identified as Specialist Ivan Lopez, opened fire with a pistol at a medical building at 4pm on Wednesday at the base where 13 people were killed in a massacre in 2009.
The 34-year-old, who had suspected post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), then drove to another part of the base and fired shots from the vehicle, said base commander Lt General Mark Milley.
He turned his weapon, a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol, on himself after a heroic female military police officer pulled her gun and approached him around 15 minutes after the first shots were fired, Milley said.

‘It was clearly heroic what she did.

‘She did her job and she did exactly what we would expect from a US military police,’ he said, though didn’t identify her.
Milley confirmed the married shooter had served in Iraq for four months in 2011 and was being treated for depression and anxiety.
Lopez, who previously served in the Army National Guard in Puerto Rico, was not wounded in action while serving overseas, but self-reported a traumatic brain injury upon his return to the U.S.
‘He was not a wounded warrior,’ said Milley.

‘He was not wounded in action, to our records, no Purple Heart, not wounded in action in that regard.’

He was also in the process of being assessed for post traumatic stress disorder, though Milley insisted he had not yet been officially diagnosed.
Read more: Daily Mail

Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2014/04/fort-h...XoQH3MGZCeP.99

IN THE MILITARY

Not terror? 4 dead, 16 hurt at Fort Hood

Master sergeant: 'People shooting at us and we can't return fire'

Published: 15 hours ago. Updated: 04/03/2014 at 9:17 AM

The unthinkable has happened at Fort Hood, Texas, the site of a 2009 terror massacre that killed 14, with another mass shooting leaving four dead and 16 people injured Wednesday at 4:25 p.m. CDT at the U.S. Army’s largest military installation.
The shooter, identified as 34-year-old Ivan Lopez, is among the dead. Lopez reportedly died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and had been wearing an Army combat uniform at the time of the attack. Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, III Corps commander at Fort Hood, said the shooter was a soldier who was under evaluation for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Six injured soldiers are being treated at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, a city about 20 minutes outside Fort Hood. According to hospital officials, the victims have a variety of injuries, including multiple gunshot wounds to the neck and abdomen.
The local newspaper, the Killeen Daily Herald, ran the following photo of a man named Spc. Ivan Lopez at Fort Hood in 2010. At the time, he was in the Warrior Transition Brigade, described as “command and control, primary care, and case management for warriors who have suffered injury or illness while serving as a member of the U.S. Army.”
The brigade’s website states, “We ensure the each Service Member receives the appropriate medical care and administrative processing that is needed to return to duty. Return to their units or their community and their Families in a timely manner and with respect.”
Spc. Ivan Lopez, 1st Battalion, Warrior Transition Brigade, ties a fly during an instructional class at Fort Hood in 2010. (Photo: Killeen Daily Herald)

The FBI and ATF responded to the scene of the shooting. While it was happening, soldiers began jumping over fences to escape the attacker.
Fort Hood, a sprawling Army post next to Killeen, Texas, was under a shelter-in-place order most of the evening. Sirens sounded across the post, warning, “Close your windows! Seek shelter immediately!”
Master Sgt. C.J. Grisham, who spoke exclusively to WND as he was attempting to leave Fort Hood, expressed frustration at the military’s gun-free policy for soldiers.
He told WND, “What really bothers me is that the very people who are trained to take out armed attackers are left defenseless to do just that, which is to take out an armed attacker.”
Grisham, who also confirmed that he’s the founder and president of Open Carry Texas, tweeted earlier in the day, “This reminds me of Afghanistan: People shooting at us and we can’t return fire.”
He said, “As you may know, Fort Hood is a gun-free zone and soldiers are unable to defend themselves. Someone tell that to the shooter please.”

For several hours after the shooting, soldiers sat in traffic jams, stuck in their cars as they tried to leave through the crowded gates of the post.
President Obama issued a statement Wednesday evening saying, “Obviously we’re following it closely. The situation is fluid right now. But my national security team is in close contact with not just the Defense Department but the FBI. They are working with folks on the ground to determine exactly what happened to make sure that everybody is secure. And I want to just assure all of us that we’re going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.
“Any shooting is troubling. Obviously this reopens the pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago. … We’re heartbroken that something like this might have happened again. … The folks there have sacrificed so much on behalf of our freedom. Many of the people there have been on multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They serve with valor; they serve with distinction. And when they’re at their home base they need to feel safe. We don’t yet know what happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken once again. And we’re going to have to find out exactly what happened.”
Washington Examiner writer Charlie Spiering tweeted, “After addressing Fort Hood shooting, Obama is going to another Chicago fundraiser – abt 55 supporters in attendance, contributing up to $10k.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called the event a “terrible tragedy.”
Just 24 hours prior to the shooting, Fox News had reported, “The FBI is searching for a recent Army recruit believed to be planning a ‘Fort Hood-inspired jihad against U.S. soldiers.’” It’s still unclear whether that threat is related to the Wednesday attack.
In 2009, Army psychiatrist and Islamist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who called himself a “mujahedeen,” or holy warrior, shot 43 people. The Obama administration labeled it “workplace violence,” not terrorism. Hasan was convicted and received the death penalty in August 2013.
Authorities have already concluded, as they did in the Hasan massacre, that the April 2 attack is not related to terrorism.
On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“Allah is greater!”) and brutally murdered 14 people (including an unborn baby) and injured 29 others at Fort Hood. Hasan described himself as a soldier who “switched sides,” claiming he was acting to protect Islamic insurgents from American aggression.
Hasan had been on federal officials’ radar screen for at least six months prior to the shooting over postings he made on the Internet. He likened a suicide bomber who kills women and children to a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to give his life in a “noble cause.”
Intelligence officials also intercepted at least 18 emails between Hasan and the radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Hasan told al-Awlaki in one of the emails, “I can’t wait to join you” in paradise. He also asked al-Awlaki whether it was appropriate to kill innocents in a suicide attack, when jihad was acceptable and how to transfer funds without attracting government notice.
As WND reported, nearly four years after Hasan’s brutal attack, he received free helicopter rides from the local jail nearly every day, lived in a private room built to accommodate his medical needs, wore a beard against Army regulations, traveled with his own security detail, had received numerous trial delays and collected a full salary of about $80,000 a year – all while many of his victims said they’ve been forgotten.



Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/unthinkab...o9eB7JHR3IS.99

Fort Hood shooter described as introverted, musical



By David A. Fahrenthold, Carol D. Leonnig and Matea Gold,
Published: April 3
Army Spec. Ivan A. Lopez — who killed three people and wounded 16 in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood — was a father of four and had spent 10 years as a police officer in his native Puerto Rico before he joined the Army.

The mass shooting at the sprawling Army post in central Texas ended about four minutes after it began, authorities said, when Lopez, 34, was confronted by a military police officer. The officer opened fire, officials said, and Lopez killed himself with a shot to the head.

On Thursday — even with the awful clarity of hindsight — investigators and Lopez’s friends were struggling to identify the clues that everyone had missed.

Friends recalled Lopez as a father, a devoted son and a talented percussionist who had joined Puerto Rico’s police force in part because he wanted to play in the police department band. He had been crushed by his mother’s unexpected death last fall but afterward had returned to his Army career at a new base.

Army officials said Lopez, a truck driver who had served one short tour in Iraq, had been prescribed drugs meant to alleviate depression, anxiety and insomnia. They said he had received a full psychiatric evaluation just a month ago.

That review did not find “any sign of likely violence, either to himself or to others,” Army Secretary John M. McHugh told a Senate panel Thursday. “The plan forward was to just continue to monitor and treat him as deemed appropriate,” he added.
On Thursday, investigators said there were reports that Lopez had argued with another soldier before the shooting.

Still, one day into the investigation, Lopez seems different from the gunmen involved in two other shootings on military posts. Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, had communicated with al-Qaeda leaders overseas. Aaron Alexis, the civilian contractor who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last year, was a loner with a history of bizarre outbursts.

Lopez had no apparent connections to terrorism, officials said. And — at least on the surface — he was not a man apart. He posted photos on Facebook of himself and his children at an amusement park. When he posted a picture of himself in uniform last year, 55 people “liked” it.

“Oh, my God. . . . I can’t believe it,” said Phanie Somar, a friend of Lopez and his wife from their time at Fort Bliss in El Paso. Until a reporter called Thursday, Somar did not know Lopez was involved in the Fort Hood attacks. “He’s very friendly, too. He’s sweet.”

Lopez was a native of Guayanilla, a city of 21,000 on Puerto Rico’s southwest coast. He came from a musical family: His father and brother played during Mass at the Catholic church they attended. Ivan Lopez followed the tradition. He spent nearly all of his life playing music — and most of his adult life doing so in uniform.

“Ivan was quiet . . . introverted, calm,” said Edgardo Arlequin, Guayanilla’s mayor and the director of a youth band that Lopez joined when he was about 11. Arlequin said that in the many years he taught Lopez, he had not seen him show anger toward another student. “Never. Never. I never saw him get in a fight.”

Lopez joined the National Guard of Puerto Rico in 1999, when he was about 20. He played in the guard’s band, according to military records, and served a year on the Sinai Peninsulain Egypt, where U.S. troops serve in a multinational peacekeeping force that acts as a guarantor of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

In 2000, he joined Puerto Rico’s police force and, eventually, its official band.

Lopez would have spent much of his time practicing and performing, said Officer Angel Miriani, a spokesman for the police force. But, he said, the members of the band are still police officers, and they can be called out to reinforce units on other parts of the island.

“The record is clean,” Miriani said Thursday, referring to Lopez’s disciplinary files.

In 2010, Lopez took a leave from the police force and entered the U.S. Army as an active-duty soldier. The force expected him to rejoin when his Army service ended.

When he entered the military, Lopez was a divorced father of two young children, both of whom remained in Puerto Rico. The rest of his immediate family — including his mother, a sister and a brother — were in Puerto Rico as well.

While stationed at Fort Bliss, Lopez met a woman named Karla — a student at El Paso Community College. Somar, a friend from that time, said Lopez and Karla met at a nightclub.

The couple got married four months later, Somar said, in June 2010. That was soon after Karla found out she was pregnant.

Karla, originally from Durango, Mexico, dropped out of school and gave up her architecture studies to take care of their new baby, Angelique Marie, Somar said. Family members in Puerto Rico said Lopez now has another child in the United States.

Lopez then went through a series of moves, which friends said separated him from his family at times and left him stressed. In 2011, he spent five months in Iraq, serving as an infantryman. Military officials said there is no indication that he was injured in combat during that tour. He received a campaign medal for his service in Iraq.

After returning to Fort Bliss, Lopez was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, in Missouri, to train to be a truck driver. A military source said Thursday that Lopez was transferred from the infantry to truck driving because of a medical problem: He had plantar fasciitis, a painful foot ailment. Lopez seemed upbeat and grateful for the change.

In February, he was transferred to Fort Hood. At times when he was away, Karla and their baby — called Angie Marie — moved in temporarily with her parents outside El Paso.

In November, Lopez’s mother died unexpectedly in Puerto Rico. Glidden Lopez, a friend who is serving as a family spokesperson, said Lopez had remained close with his parents, calling them regularly.

After his mother died, Lopez returned to Puerto Rico for the funeral.

To friends, Lopez seemed deeply affected by his mother’s death, and he reportedly said the Army had granted him too little leave time.

By this year, Lopez was under a doctor’s care, having been prescribed medication. The drugs included Ambien, a sleep aid, the Army secretary said Thursday. Lopez also was being examined for post-traumatic stress disorder.

In March, he had the evaluation that determined he was not contemplating violence. That same month, his family moved in with him near Fort Hood.

On March 1, Lopez walked into a gun store near the base and bought the .45-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol he used in the rampage.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...b08_story.html