When mainstream media began reporting on the shooting at Fort Hood, numerous reports surfaced stating multiple shooters were involved. Why haven’t we heard more information about these other shooters? Instead, allegations regarding Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s involvement have garnered the most attention from the mainstream media.
This video shows CNN interviewing Sgt. Maj. Jamie Poston. During this interview, Sgt. Maj. Jamie Poston confirms multiple times that more than one shooter was involved:
In the following video, Texas Governor Rick Perry also claims that more than one shooter was involved:
We posted the following video from the Associated Press in our original breaking news post for Fort Hood:
However, this video from the Associated Press on November 8, 2009 claims that more than one police officer shot at Maj. Hasan.
In the following video, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone announced that the shooter was alive (initially reported dead) and that a female officer was the first responder who shot at the suspected shooter:
AP News in Brief at 5:58 p.m. EST
(AP) – Nov. 9, 2009
Lawyer headed to meet Fort Hood shooting suspect, asks investigators not to question him
KILLEEN, Texas (AP) — A lawyer for the Army psychiatrist accused in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood said Monday he asked investigators not to question his client and expressed doubt that the suspect would be able to get a fair trial, given the widespread attention to the case.
Retired Col. John P. Galligan said he was contacted Monday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s family and was headed to an Army hospital in San Antonio to meet Hasan.
“Until I meet with him, it’s best to say we’re just going to protect all of his rights,” Galligan said.
Hasan, 39, is accused of opening fire on the Army post on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before civilian police shot him in the torso. He was taken into custody and eventually moved to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he was in stable condition Monday and able to talk, hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said.
Galligan said he didn’t know if Hasan had been medically cleared to talk.
Fort Hood Rampage Spurs a Probe of ‘Warning Signs’ (Update4)
(Bold sections via TheKatyCapsule editing)
By John Hughes and David Wethe
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. lawmakers want to know whether the shooting rampage at an Army base in Texas last week was an unforeseeable, aberrant act or a lesson on missed red flags.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will investigate what motivated the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, Senator Joseph Lieberman said yesterday. Thirteen people were killed and 30 injured in the Nov. 5 attack at Fort Hood.
“We don’t know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs” that Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, “had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act,” Lieberman said on “Fox News Sunday.” Those signs might have been enough to have prompted the Army to discharge Hasan, said Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate homeland security panel.
Lieberman cited alleged past statements by Hasan justifying suicide bombings, along with witness reports at Fort Hood that he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” while firing.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the homeland security committee, said today a witness list is being drawn up for a hearing that might take place as early as next week.
Lone Wolf?
“We have not received any definitive information at this point, so it’s impossible to assess whether this was a lone wolf who self-radicalized or whether he was radicalized through contacts with other Islamists,” she told reporters in Washington.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Army are investigating the shootings.
Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, in a Nov. 7 letter asked the heads of the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies to preserve all information related to the shootings.
“I have been made aware of information from the intelligence community that suggests the possibility that serious issues exist with respect to the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies,” Hoekstra wrote.
In the letter, Hoekstra said he was “troubled” he hadn’t been provided specific information on the case he had asked for.
Patience Urged
Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said it is premature to criticize the government’s actions. “I am disappointed that some have rushed to the news media with unfounded information in order to gain headlines,” Reyes, a Texas Democrat, said in a statement.
Lawmakers should have patience with the criminal probe, said Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri, the Senate intelligence panel’s senior Republican.
“First, it’s important to let the investigators do their jobs,” he said in a statement. “Then we will find out the who, what and when, if anything, our intelligence community knew.”
Hasan, 39, is in critical but stable condition and has been conversing since Nov. 7 with medical staff at Brooke Army Medical Center, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds, said Maria Gallegos, a spokeswoman for the San Antonio hospital. He is in the intensive care unit and breathing without the assistance of a ventilator, she said.
Retired Colonel John Galligan told the Associated Press that he has been retained by Hasan’s family to defend him and has asked investigators not to question his client.
Galligan didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
‘Random Act’
Colonel Frank Jackson, an Army chaplain who led services yesterday at Fort Hood’s 73rd Street Chapel, told reporters he believes the shooting was “an unfortunate, random act of violence.”
General George Casey, the U.S. Army chief of staff, said it remains too early to speculate on motives.
Asked on ABC’s “This Week” by host George Stephanopoulos whether it’s unknown if the shooting was a terrorist act or a case of someone who just “snapped,” Casey replied, “You are exactly right, and I don’t think we should speculate on one or the other, or any other possibilities.”
Casey, when asked about the role Hasan’s Muslim faith may have played in the shooting, said the issue was something “we need to be very careful about.”
Caution on ‘Backlash’
“The speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” Casey said. “What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”
A Web posting purportedly from a radical imam, Anwar al Awlaki, who may be linked to Hasan praised the suspect’s actions.
Calling him “a hero,” the posting said, “Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?”
A U.S. official said authorities are investigating ties between Hasan and al Awlaki, who was an imam at Dar Al Hijarah Islamic Center, a Falls Church, Virginia, mosque where Hasan’s family worshiped.
Hasan was not “a regular” at the mosque, said Imam Johari Abdulmalik, the mosque’s outreach director, at a news conference today.
“At a mosque, people pray five times a day and we have people here for all five of them,” he said. “He was not a person who was here every day.”
Hasan wouldn’t have found support for extremist views at the mosque, he said. “It’s not going to be a place where you’re going to be provoked to violence,” Abdulmalik said.
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will travel to Fort Hood tomorrow to attend a memorial service. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Hasan may be tried by a military rather than a civilian court.
Now, we also have reports stating that U.S. intelligence agencies had information regarding Maj. Hasan’s attempts to contact al-Qeada:
U.S. had al Qaeda intelligence on Fort Hood shooter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence agencies learned an Army psychiatrist tried to contact people linked to al Qaeda and they gave the information to federal authorities before the man allegedly went on shooting spree in Texas last week, U.S. sources said on Monday.
It is unclear what federal law enforcement authorities did with the information.
Thirteen people were killed in the Fort Hood shooting by the suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim born in the United States of immigrant parents.
(Reporting by Adam Entous; Editing by Arshad Mohammed and Chris Wilson)
