Major Held in Fort Hood Rampage Is Charged With 13 Counts of Murder

Major Held in Fort Hood Rampage Is Charged With 13 Counts of Murder
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 12, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13inquire.html?th&emc=th


FORT HOOD, Tex. — Military officials charged Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan on Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder, accusing him of a brutal one-man attack here at America’s largest Army post last week and setting in motion what promises to be a momentous court-martial proceeding that could end in the death penalty.

Major Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist who had espoused the belief that America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wars against all Muslims, is accused of opening fire with a pistol on Nov. 5 at a Fort Hood center where troops receive medical attention before being deployed or after returning from overseas.

Before being cut down by the police, he shot to death four commissioned officers, eight enlisted soldiers and one civilian in the crowded center, officials say. Twenty-nine other people were wounded, even as some threw chairs and tables at the gunman and struggled to flee the building.

Christopher P. Grey, a spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, said at a news conference here that the 13 murder counts against Major Hasan were “initial charges” and that “additional charges may be preferred in the future, subject to the ongoing criminal investigation.”

Ever since the shooting, the military and the Federal Bureau of Investigation . have been trying to determine whether the gunman acted alone, and so far, law enforcement officials in Washington say, they have found no evidence of a conspiracy.

Col. John P. Galligan, a retired Army officer who is representing Major Hasan, has questioned whether he will be able to get a fair trial at Fort Hood. Colonel Galligan also told CNN that he had spoken to the major, who was wounded by a police officer responding to the rampage and who remains heavily sedated at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Colonel Galligan did not respond to messages from a reporter on Thursday.

Mr. Grey said Major Hasan remained under guard at the hospital, where he is listed in stable condition and is recovering from four gunshot wounds. Twelve of the victims remain in hospitals, one in intensive care, said Col. John G. Rossi, deputy Fort Hood commander.

The inquiry into the shooting is going slowly, Mr. Grey said. Investigators have cordoned off the center where it occurred, along with four adjacent buildings and two large nearby parking lots. They are meticulously analyzing evidence of more than 100 rounds that the authorities say Major Hasan fired during the attack, Mr. Grey added, and are interviewing dozens of witnesses.

“Some of the witnesses that experienced this tragic event are still seeking medical attention, and we have not been able to talk to them,” he said, flanked by lead investigators from the Army, the F.B.I. and the Texas Rangers.

Mr. Grey said a motive for the shootings had yet to be determined. He also said investigators believed that Major Hasan had been the only gunman at the scene, had had no orders from Army superiors to be there and had had no scheduled appointments there.

Major Hasan was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan on Nov. 28 with several Army Reserve units of mental health professionals trained to deal with combat stress. Five of the soldiers he is charged with killing came from those Reserve units. The civilian who died, Michael Grant Cahill, 62, was a physician’s assistant who had been working at Fort Hood and, according to his family, had also worked with soldiers dealing with mental health problems who were either going or returning from overseas.

President Obama has ordered all government agencies to search their files for any information obtained about Major Hasan before the shooting, the White House announced Thursday. In the order, dated Tuesday, the president also directed the F.B.I., the Defense Department and intelligence agencies to assess how the information had been “handled, shared and acted upon.”

Mr. Grey took no questions at the news conference about the precise circumstances in which Major Hasan was brought down by the Army’s civilian police.

“Our investigation thus far,” he said in his statement, “indicates that two responding police officers, one male and one female, arrived at the scene and both engaged the armed suspect. I would caution anyone from drawing final conclusions concerning the actual engagement, in terms of who did what, until all the evidence is fully analyzed.”

Military officials initially reported that one police officer, Sgt. Kimberly D. Munley, had wounded the gunman during an exchange of gunfire with him. But a second civilian officer, Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, said in an interview on Thursday that he shot Major Hasan while Sergeant Munley, already wounded, was lying on the ground. He said he did not know whether Sergeant Munley too had shot the major.

Carla Baranauckas and Liz Robbins contributed reporting from New York, and Scott Shane and David Stout from Washington.
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