Fort Hood shootings linked to leave request by perpetrator, US army says
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Version 0 of 1. The rampage at Fort Hood that left three dead and 16 wounded last week was related to the shooter's request for leave from the Texas army post, military investigators said on Monday. Army spokesman Chris Grey did not indicate during a news conference whether Specialist Ivan Lopez had been granted the leave. Grey said the shooting spree on Wednesday covered the equivalent of two city blocks as Lopez drove from one area to another on the Texas base randomly firing at soldiers. A spokesman for Lopez's family said last week that he had been upset to have received only a 24-hour leave to attend his mother's funeral in November. That leave was then extended to two days. Providing the most detail yet about the second mass shooting at Fort Hood in five years, Grey said Lopez fired more than 35 shots while driving from one building on the sprawling army base to another over the course of eight minutes. The three who died were gunned down in separate locations. The rampage ended when Grey said Lopez got out of his car and was confronted by a female military police officer, who fired her gun but did not hit him. Lopez then turned his .45-calibre pistol to his head and killed himself, Grey said. President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend a memorial service for the victims on Wednesday at Fort Hood. Grey said Lopez killed one soldier and wounded 10 others in the first building, and that the victim there included one of the men Lopez had argued with moments earlier. Lopez then drove to his usual workplace, a motor pool area, and killed one person, Grey said. The last place Lopez entered was a medical building where he walked inside and killed a soldier behind the desk, Grey said. "At this point we do not know why he entered that building and we may never know why," Grey said. In all, investigators say, Lopez fired more than 35 shots. Authorities said 11 of 16 injured people have returned to duty. In another attack at the base in 2009, 13 people were killed by army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who had said he was angry about being deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders from US troops. Lopez, an army truck driver, did a short stint in Iraq in 2011 and told medical personnel he had suffered a traumatic brain injury. The 34-year-old was undergoing treatment for depression and anxiety while being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder, base officials said. Fort Hood officials said on Friday, however, that his mental condition was not a "direct participating factor" in the shooting. Officials said Lopez did not see any combat in Iraq and had not previously demonstrated a risk of violence. He seemed to have a clean record that showed no ties to potential terrorists. |