Soldier Opens Fire at Ft. Hood; 12 Dead

Local police who responded to the incident killed the primary gunman and apprehended two other soldiers suspected in what appears to be the worst mass shooting at a U.S. military base.

The two suspects detained in the shooting have since been released. An earlier Fort Hood press release said that "more than one shooter fired shots into the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and Howze Theater on Fort Hood" and the commander of the Fort Hood army post said eyewitnesses described multiple shooters. CNN is reporting that a third suspect is still being held.

The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said at a news conference. He said all the casualties took place at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening.

The shooting suspect has been identified as Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

"It’s a terrible tragedy. It’s stunning," Cone said. "Soldiers and family members and many of the great civilians that work here are absolutely devastated."

The wounded are dispersed among several central Texas hospitals and the extent of their injuries varied, Cone said.

President Barack Obama, speaking before a scheduled event in Washington, said, "It’s difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

FBI agents have responded to the base and the military is asking the FBI’s help in investigating the backgrounds of the two soldiers held as suspects in the shooting, Cone said.

A law enforcement official says investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name, or if he changed his name and converted to Islam at some point in his life.

Military officials say Hasan worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC for six years before being transferred to the Texas base in July. The officials had access to Hasan’s military record. They said he received a poor performance evaluation while at Walter Reed.

He is a graduate of Virginia Tech University, where he was a member of the ROTC and earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1997. He received his medical degree from the military’s Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001. At Walter Reed, he did his internship, residency and a fellowship.

During the attack, terrified military families turned to Twitter to find out what was happening, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

One tweet read, "locked in my post housing, scared, don’t know where the shooters are." Another: "haven’t heard warning sirens in about 15 minutes, just waiting to get to my husband. And a third, capturing the shock brought on by today’s attack: "i thought i was living in one of the safest places ever."

A graduation ceremony for soldiers who finished college courses while deployed was going on in an auditorium at the Readiness Center at the time of the shooting, said Lampam said.

Greg Schanepp, U.S. Rep. John Carter’s regional director in Texas, was representing Carter at the graduation, a Carter spokesman said.

Schanepp was at the ceremony when a soldier who had been shot in the back came running toward him and alerted him of the shooting, Stone said. The soldier told Schanepp not to go in the direction of the shooter, he said. Stone said he believes Schanepp was in the theater.

"I was here for a 2 p.m. graduation," Schannep, a retired Army colonel,
The shootings on the Texas military base stirred memories of other recent mass shootings in the United States, including 13 dead at a New York immigrant center in March, 10 killed during a gunman’s rampage across Alabama in March and 32 killed in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history at Virginia Tech in 2007.