Suspect in Hood shootings remains in coma

Suspect in Hood shootings remains in coma

By Brett J. Blackledge and Mike Baker - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Nov 6, 2009 19:00:58 EST

FORT HOOD, Texas — As if going off to war, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan cleaned out his apartment and called another to thank him for his friendship — common courtesies and routines of the departing soldier. Instead, authorities say, he went on the killing spree that left 13 people — 12 service members and one civilian — at Fort Hood, Texas, dead.

Investigators examined Hasan’s computer, his home and his garbage Friday to learn what motivated the suspect, who lay in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting that also wounded 30. Hospital officials said some of the wounded had extremely serious injuries and might not survive.

The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist emerged as a study in contradictions: a polite man who stewed with discontent, a counselor who needed to be counseled himself, a professional healer now suspected of cutting down the fellow soldiers he was sworn to help.
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Suspect in Hood shootings remains in coma

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Soldiers say carnage could have been worse

By Allen G. Breed and Jeff Carlton - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Nov 6, 2009 19:52:11 EST

FORT HOOD, Texas — Pfc. Marquest Smith, on his way to Afghanistan in January, was completing routine paperwork about a bee-sting allergy when the sounds erupted.

A loud, popping noise. Moans. The sudden, urgent shout of “Gun!” Smith poked his head over the cubicle’s partition and saw an extraordinary sight: An Army officer with two guns, firing into the crowded room.

The 21-year-old Fort Worth native quickly grabbed the civilian worker who’d been helping with his paperwork and forced her under the desk. He lay low for several minutes, waiting for the shooter to run out of ammunition and wishing he, too, had a gun.

After the shooter stopped to reload, Smith made a run for it. Pushing two other soldiers in front of him, he made it out of the Soldier Readiness Processing center — only to plunge into the building twice more to help the wounded.
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Soldiers say carnage could have been worse