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| FILE - In this Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009, file photo, an entrance is shown to Fort Hood Army Base in Fort Hood, Texas. Fort Hood says there's been a shooting at the Texas Army base and that there have been injuries, on Wednesday, April 2, 2014. |
FORT HOOD, Texas
(AP) -- One person was killed and 14 injured in a shooting Wednesday
at Fort Hood, and officials at the base said the shooter is believed to
be dead.
The details about the number of
people hurt came from two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the information by
name.
Fort Hood said in a statement posted
online that its Directorate of Emergency Services had an initial report
that the shooter was dead, but that the report was unconfirmed.
Additional details were not immediately available.
A
U.S. law enforcement official said reports circulating within the
Justice Department indicate the shooter died of what appears to be a
self-inflicted wound. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity
because the investigation is still ongoing.
The
Army said on its official Twitter feed that the Texas Army post was
still on lockdown. Injured people were being treated at the post's Carl
R. Darnall Medical Center and other local hospitals.
President
Barack Obama vowed that investigators will get to the bottom of the
shooting, seeking to reassure the nation whose sense of security once
again has been shaken by mass violence.
In a
hastily arranged statement, Obama said he and his team were following
the situation closely but that details about what happened at the
sprawling Army post were still fluid. He said the shooting brought back
painful memories of the 2009, when 13 were killed at the same post in
the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in history.
Obama
reflected on the sacrifices that troops stationed at Fort Hood have
made - including during multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They
serve with valor, they serve with distinction and when they're at their
home base, they need to feel safe," Obama said. "We don't yet know what
happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken
once again."
The president spoke without notes
or prepared remarks in the same room of a Chicago steakhouse where he
had just met with about 25 donors at a previously scheduled fundraiser
for the Democratic National Committee. White House officials quickly
pushed tables to the side of the room to make room for Obama to speak to
the nation.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said many questions remained about the
shooting and the focus was on support the victims and their families.
"This is a community that has faced and overcome crises with resilience
and strength," he added.
The November 2009
attack at Fort Hood happened inside a crowded building where soldiers
were waiting to get vaccines and routine paperwork after recently
returning from deployments or while preparing to go to Afghanistan and
Iraq.
Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death last year in that mass shooting.
According
to testimony during Hasan's trial last August, Hasan walked inside
carrying two weapons and several loaded magazines, shouted "Allah
Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" - and opened fire with a handgun.
Witnesses
said he targeted soldiers as he walked through the building, leaving
pools of blood, spent casings and dying soldiers on the floor. Photos of
the scene were shown to the 13 officers on the military jury.
The
rampage ended when Hasan was shot in the back by Fort Hood police
officers outside the building, which left him paralyzed from the waist
down. Hasan is now on death row at the military prison at Fort
Leavenworth in Kansas.
After that shooting,
the military tightened security at bases nationwide. Those measures
included issuing security personnel long-barreled weapons, adding an
insider-attack scenario to their training, and strengthening ties to
local law enforcement, according to Peter Daly, a vice admiral who
retired from the Navy in 2011. The military also joined an FBI
intelligence-sharing program aimed at identifying terror threats.
In
September, a former Navy man opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard,
leaving 13 people dead, including the gunman. After that shooting, Hagel
ordered the Pentagon to review security at all U.S. defense
installations worldwide and examine the granting of security clearances
that allow access to them.
