Fort Hood

FORT HOOD, Texas — Family members of the 13 people killed one year ago during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood kneeled, cried, and ran their hands across the names of loved ones etched in a 6-foot-tall granite memorial unveiled yesterday at the Army post. Many families of the 12 soldiers and one civilian who died on Nov. 5, 2009, met each other for the first time at the anniversary memorial, hugging and weeping together. “It was so emotional to be with the other families and to remember and honor our loved ones we lost on this day,’’ said Leila Hunt Willingham, whose brother, Specialist Jason...

Walking around a gun store one day last summer, the young man never took off his sunglasses as he asked questions about items he piled on the counter — behavior that struck the manager as odd. Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo had already traveled hundreds of miles since going AWOL from Fort Campbell, Ky., three weeks earlier. He bought a gun from an online seller in Nashville and paid cash for thousands of dollars of bomb-making components at a major Dallas-area retail store. Trying to avoid being caught, he wore a baseball cap and sunglasses most of the time, never used credit cards while...

FORT WORTH — The US Army presented a heroism medal yesterday to the widow of the man credited with being the first to try stopping the Fort Hood gunman before being slain in the rampage, Fort Hood officials said. Michael Grant Cahill clutched a chair over his head and ran at the gunman soon after gunfire erupted on Nov. 5, 2009, and was fatally shot, according to several witnesses’ testimony at an evidentiary hearing last fall for the suspect, Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist.

WACO, Texas - Explosives specialists found evidence of a bomb in the making - a pressure cooker containing smokeless powder and other material - in the Texas motel room of a soldier accused of planning to blow up Fort Hood troops, according to testimony at his federal trial Wednesday. After Private First Class Naser Jason Abdo was detained in July at a motel in Killeen, authorities searching his backpack found a loaded handgun, components to make an explosive device, a handwritten list of items, and an article about making bombs, said Sergeant First Class Brad Grimes of Fort...

FORT HOOD, Texas - The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood will go on trial in June, a military judge ruled yesterday after agreeing to a three-month delay. Attorneys for Major Nidal Hasan argued during a hearing at the Army post that they still lacked key evidence needed to prepare for a March trial. Prosecutors insisted that defense lawyers did not need more time, saying one defense expert was hired nearly two years ago and that he alone has already racked up about $250,000 in fees billed to the government.

FORT HOOD, Texas — A military hearing to determine whether an Army psychiatrist should go to trial for last year’s deadly Fort Hood shootings was unexpectedly stalled yesterday, without testimony from any of the dozens of survivors, after defense attorneys requested a monthlong delay. Colonel James L. Pohl, a military judge acting as the investigating officer in the case of Major Nidal Hasan, said he would rule today on the defense request to start the Article 32 hearing Nov. 8. Lieutenant Colonel Kris Poppe said yesterday that the delay was necessary because of certain issues, but...

FORT HOOD, Texas — In the weeks before the deadly Fort Hood rampage, an Army psychiatrist repeatedly visited a firing range to hone his skills with his new laser-equipped semiautomatic handgun by shooting at the heads on silhouette targets, witnesses told a military hearing yesterday. Major Nidal Hasan bought an FN 5.7 semiautomatic handgun on Aug. 1, a few weeks after he entered the store and made “an interesting request . . . for the most high-tech weapon we had,’’ said Fredrick Brannon, a former employee of Guns Galore.

Police officers suddenly rushed the young man wearing a T-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap as he walked out of a motel toward an idling cab near a Texas Army post. They ordered him to lie face down, took off his backpack and then questioned him in the back of a patrol car. Officers knew neither his name nor his background, but had tracked him since they were tipped off to suspicious purchases at a gun store. "I was planning an attack here in the Fort Hood community because I don't appreciate what my unit did in Afghanistan," he...

FORT HOOD, Texas - The Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting rampage unexpectedly severed ties with his lead attorney yesterday, eight months before the military trial at which he faces the death penalty. Major Nidal Hasan confirmed during his arraignment that he dropped his civilian attorney, a retired Army colonel who had represented him since the 2009 attack on the Texas Army post. Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, said he wanted to be represented by three military...

FORT HOOD, Texas — A military officer yesterday rejected a defense request to keep an upcoming hearing about last year’s Fort Hood massacre closed, saying the public and the victims’ families have a right to hear testimony from those affected by the attack. Colonel James L. Pohl, a military judge acting as the investigating officer in the case, said that keeping next month’s hearing open would preserve the integrity of the military justice system. He previously said he planned to call the 32 people injured in the shooting to testify during the Article 32 hearing,...

Opening statements are set to be delivered in the federal trial of a soldier accused of planning to bomb a restaurant frequented by Fort Hood troops. Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo faces up to life in prison if convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and other charges. Abdo has been accused of spitting blood on authorities while in custody and had a mask on Monday as a jury was selected in the Waco courtroom. Abdo is a Muslim soldier who was AWOL from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, when he was arrested last summer at a Killeen motel near Fort Hood.

Police officers suddenly rushed the young man wearing a T-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap as he walked out of a motel toward an idling cab near a Texas Army post. They ordered him to lie face down, took off his backpack and then questioned him in the back of a patrol car. Officers knew neither his name nor his background, but had tracked him since they were tipped off to suspicious purchases at a gun store. "I was planning an attack here in the Fort Hood community because I don't appreciate what my unit did in Afghanistan," he can be heard telling a detective in a...

A 6-foot-long inactive training missile accidentally fell from a military helicopter into field near a Texas military post, causing the brief evacuation of nearby homes but not harming anyone, officials said. About 100 homes in a neighborhood near Fort Hood were evacuated Tuesday night after a witness reported seeing something fall from the sky around 8 p.m., Killeen police spokeswoman Carroll Smith said. Residents were allowed back into their homes within an hour of the incident.

A couple of New Hampshire Army National Guard units are mobilizing within the next 10 months in support of combat operations in Afghanistan. The guard's 237th Military Police Company and Detachment 2, Company F, 1st Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment is made up of 170 soldiers. The unit expects to deploy up to a year. Based in Concord, the aviation detachment, a medical evacuation unit, is expected to report to Fort Hood, Texas, in October. The military police company will report to Fort Bliss, Texas, in February 2012.

A soldier who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for killing a comrade from Cape Cod during a game of "quick draw" while the pair was deployed to Iraq has been sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison. The Cape Cod Times (http://bit.ly/H2yIC3) reports that Brent McBride entered his plea during a court martial at Fort Hood, Texas on Thursday. Authorities say McBride accidentally shot and killed Sgt. Matthew Gallagher of Falmouth, Mass. last June, a week before his 23rd birthday as the two played a game in which they drew and aimed their handguns at each other.

The soldier who fatally shot Falmouth native and US Army Sergeant Matthew Gallagher last year in Iraq has agreed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges and will serve less than 12 years in prison, Gallagher's mother said Thursday. Cheryl Ruggiero, 54, of Falmouth, said in a phone interview that on Tuesday, an Army prosecutor informed her of the plea deal, which she and Gallagher's widow, Katie, agreed to. Ruggiero said the gunman, Army Sergeant Brent McBride, is scheduled to plead guilty at Fort Hood, Texas, March.

BELTON, Texas — The Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood will be kept isolated from all other inmates at the jail where he was transferred early yesterday, the local sheriff said. Major Nidal Hasan was airlifted from a San Antonio military hospital to the Bell County Jail in Belton about 4 a.m. yesterday. He had been at the military hospital since shortly after the Nov. 5 shooting spree that left him paralyzed. Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder.

FORT WORTH - The Army psychiatrist charged in the worst mass shooting on a US military installation will be tried in a military court and face the death penalty if convicted, Fort Hood’s commanding general announced yesterday. Major Nidal Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shooting spree on the Texas Army post. A military judge has not been named in the case, and it was not immediately clear when Hasan will be arraigned in a Fort Hood courtroom.

FORT HOOD, Texas - The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood will go on trial in June, a military judge ruled yesterday after agreeing to a three-month delay. Attorneys for Major Nidal Hasan argued during a hearing at the Army post that they still lacked key evidence needed to prepare for a March trial. Prosecutors insisted that defense lawyers did not need more time, saying one defense expert was hired nearly two years ago and that he alone has already racked up about $250,000 in fees billed to the government.

Northrop Grumman Corp., which makes the B-2 bomber and unmanned aircraft used by the U.S. military, says about 210 people working at the company's facility in Fort Hood will be laid off in February. The company informed the Texas Workforce Commission that the employees will lose their jobs around Feb. 29. The company was required under the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification (WARN) Act to inform the commission of the layoffs. The company manufactures and produces an array of aerospace, navigation, radar and other systems used by the U.S. military.