As if going off to war, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan cleaned out his apartment, gave leftover frozen broccoli to one neighbor and called another to thank him for his friendship – common courtesies and routines of the departing soldier. Instead, authorities say, he went on the killing spree that left 13 people at Fort Hood dead.
Investigators examined Hasan’s computer, his home and his garbage Friday to learn what motivated the suspect, who lay in a coma, shot four times in the frantic bloodletting. Hospital officials said some of the wounded had extremely serious injuries and might not survive.
The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist emerged as a study in contradictions: a polite man who stewed with discontent, a counselor who needed to be counseled himself, a professional healer now suspected of cutting down the fellow soldiers he was sworn to help.
Relatives said he felt harassed because of his Muslim faith but did not embrace extremism. Others were not so sure. A recent classmate said Hasan once gave a jarring presentation to students in which he argued the war on terrorism was a war against Islam, and “made himself a lightning rod for things” when he felt his religious beliefs were challenged.
Investigators were trying to piece together how and why Hasan allegedly gunned down his comrades in the worst case of violence on a military base in the U.S.
The assailant fired more than 100 rounds and that his weapons were not military arms, but “privately owned weapons ... purchased locally,” said Army Col. John Rossi, deputy commander at Fort Hood.
The 30 wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas. Army briefers told lawmakers eight other people were treated at a hospital for stress and trauma.
At a news conference Friday, Rossi said 23 people remained hospitalized, about half still in intensive care.
Hasan, meanwhile, was transferred Friday to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Rossi gave no indication of his condition except to say he was “not able to converse.”
In a vigil Friday night, husbands wrapped their arms around their wives, babies cried and old men in wheelchairs bowed their heads as several hundred people gathered at a stadium on the sprawling Army post, the country’s largest.
Hasan’s family said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were deplorable and don’t reflect how the family was reared.
Hasan was due to be deployed to Afghanistan to help soldiers with combat stress, a task he’d done stateside with returning soldiers, the Army said. Army spokeswoman Col. Cathy Abbott was uncertain when Hasan was to leave.
Jose Padilla, the owner of Hasan’s apartment complex, said Hasan gave him notice two weeks ago that he was moving out this week.
