FORT HOOD, Texas — A quiet autumn afternoon – Nov. 5, 2009 – at Fort Hood in Central Texas was shattered by gunfire after a U.S. Army major turned on his fellow soldiers, killing 13 and wounding 30 others.
39-year-old Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire with his semi-automatic pistol at a Fort Hood processing center as soldiers who were about to be deployed overseas, or had just returned from deployment, were inside. According to investigators, Hasan fired for ten minutes before a police officer shot him.
In the aftermath of the massacre, a Pentagon review and Senate panel found Hasan’s superiors had continued to promote him even though some raised concerns that he had become a radical Islamic extremist.
Hasan survived, but was paralyzed from the waist down. He was tried in a military court and sentenced to death. He's now on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. But the military appeals process will take several more years.
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