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| This undated photo provided by Glidden Lopez shows Army Spc. Ivan Lopez. Authorities said Lopez killed three people and wounded 16 others in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, on Wednesday, April 2, 2014, before killing himself. Investigators believe his unstable mental health contributed to the rampage. |
FORT HOOD, Texas
(AP) -- The soldier who killed three people at Fort Hood may have
argued with another service member prior to the attack, and
investigators believe his unstable mental health contributed to the
rampage, authorities said Thursday.
The base's
senior officer, Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, said there is a "strong
possibility" that Spc. Ivan Lopez had a "verbal altercation" with
another soldier or soldiers immediately before Wednesday's shooting,
which unfolded on the same Army post that was the scene of an infamous
2009 mass shooting.
However, there's no indication that he targeted specific soldiers, Milley said.
Lopez
never saw combat during a deployment to Iraq and had shown no apparent
risk of violence before the shooting, officials said.
The
34-year-old truck driver from Puerto Rico seemed to have a clean record
that showed no ties to extremist groups. But the Army secretary
promised that investigators would keep all avenues open in their inquiry
of the soldier whose rampage ended only after he fired a final bullet
into his own head.
"We're not making any
assumptions by that. We're going to keep an open mind and an open
investigation. We will go where the facts lead us," Army Secretary John
McHugh said, explaining that "possible extremist involvement is still
being looked at very, very carefully."
Investigators
were also looking into Lopez's psychological background. He had sought
help for depression, anxiety and other problems, military officials
said.
"We have very strong evidence that he
had a medical history that indicates unstable psychiatric or
psychological condition," Milley said. "We believe that to be a
fundamental underlying cause."
Scott &
White Memorial Hospital in nearby Temple, Texas, was still caring for
several of the 16 people who were wounded. All of them were in either
serious or good condition, and some could be discharged before the end
of Thursday.
Hospital officials had no
information about patients being treated elsewhere, including at a base
hospital. But because Scott & White is the area's only trauma
center, the patients with the most serious injuries were probably taken
there.
Investigators searched the soldier's home Thursday and questioned his wife, Fort Hood spokesman Chris Haug said.
Lopez
apparently walked into a building Wednesday and began firing a
.45-caliber semi-automatic pistol. He then got into a vehicle and
continued firing before driving to another building. He was eventually
confronted by military police in a parking lot, Milley said.
As
he came within 20 feet of a police officer, the gunman put his hands up
but then reached under his jacket and pulled out his gun. The officer
drew her own weapon, and the suspect put his gun to his head and pulled
the trigger, Milley said.
Lopez grew up in
Guayanilla, a town of fewer than 10,000 people on the southwestern coast
of Puerto Rico, with a mother who was a nurse at a public clinic and a
father who did maintenance for an electric utility company.
Glidden Lopez Torres, who said he was a friend speaking for the family, said Lopez's mother died of a heart attack in November.
The
soldier was upset that he was granted only a 24-hour leave to attend
her funeral, which was delayed for nearly a week so he could be there,
the spokesman said. The leave was then extended to two days.
Lopez
joined the island's National Guard in 1999 and served on a yearlong
peacekeeping mission in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in the mid-2000s. He
enlisted with the Army in 2008 and saw no combat during a four-month
deployment to Iraq as a truck driver in 2011, McHugh said.
A
review of his service record showed no Purple Heart, indicating he was
never wounded. He arrived at Fort Hood in February from Fort Bliss,
Texas.
He saw a psychiatrist last month and showed no "sign of any likely violence either to himself or others," McHugh said.
Suzie
Miller, a 71-year-old retired property manager who lived in the same
Killeen apartment complex as Lopez, said few people knew him and his
wife well because they had just moved in.
"I'd
see him in his uniform heading out to the car every morning," Miller
said. "He was friendly to me and a lot of us around here."
The
shootings revived memories of the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood,
the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in U.S.
history. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 were wounded.
Army
psychiatrist Nidal Hasan was convicted last year in that assault, which
he has said was to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American
aggression. After that shooting, the military tightened base security
nationwide.
