Hasan received a poor performance evaluation there, the Associated Press reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was an intern, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, according to Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.
By Gregg Zoroya and Ken Dilanian
WASHINGTON — The military must answer for whether it missed warning signs when the Fort Hood shooting suspect performed poorly as a psychiatrist in a previous post, the Pentagon’s former top doctor said Friday.
At issue, S. Ward Casscells told USA TODAY, “is whether the Army missed a warning signal. It’s a legitimate question.”
Authorities say Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an active-duty military psychiatrist, is the suspect in a shooting spree Thursday at the sprawling Texas post that killed 13. Hasan was among 30 people wounded in the rampage and remained hospitalized Friday in a coma, attached to a ventilator. All but two of the injured were still hospitalized. All were in stable condition, though Dr. W. Roy Smythe, a surgeon at one of the hospitals, told the Associated Press that some were still at risk of death.
Casscells, who retired in April as the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for health affairs, said he had been speaking to many who worked with Hasan at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington, D.C.
The consensus at Walter Reed, Casscells said, was that Hasan was sent to Fort Hood for “a fresh start” after a difficult time at Walter Reed.
Hasan received a poor performance evaluation there, the Associated Press reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was an intern, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, according to Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.
Hasan reported for duty at Fort Hood in July. He had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan to counsel soldiers suffering from combat stress, Army spokeswoman Col. Cathy Abbott said Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Hasan sought the assignment or was being sent against his wishes. His cousin, Nader Hasan, told news organizations that Hasan, 39, was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and had been trying to leave the Army.
Casscells said people who worked with Hasan said they saw no signs of mental illness. However, “if it was possible they were trying to fill the roster and someone looked the other way, that’s a question that has to be asked of the head psychiatry at Walter Reed,” Casscells said.
“You’re entitled to ask, ‘Was there a social promotion here?’ Was he moved to Fort Hood because he wasn’t doing well at Walter Reed and they thought the fresh start would help?’ ” he said.
“Talking to people who knew him,” Casscells said, “no one thinks that this was (post traumatic stress) or a religious war. He was just a sociopathic person, not so much mentally ill, but sociopathic … This is just a lonely guy who got a bad officer evaluation report and he lost the confidence of his peers and he withdrew into religion as a solace.”
“For me, it’s particularly painful,” he said. “Our focus was on the doctors to dig deep and do all they can for these guys (troops) and to have one of our own do this is personally crushing. …I think everybody who’s worked with him is saying, ‘Should I have reached out to him and put my arms around him? Should I have called my supervisor?’ “
Born in Northern Virginia, Hasan received his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.
The president of that university told USA TODAY on Friday that although Hasan was subject to screening, there was no way to predict this sort of violence.
“We wish we were farther along in the science to be able to predict where’s the breaking point for a particular individual,” said Charles Rice, the president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. “We’re just not there yet.”
Rice told USA TODAY that he arrived after Hasan graduated, but he was confident Hasan had been screened for suitability both as a doctor and a military officer. “We will go back and look to see how do we teach our students about dealing with way-beyond-normal stress levels, no question we will do that,” he said.
As investigators sought to piece together what happened and why, new information emerged Friday:
• Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center, the hospital at Ft. Hood, said Friday morning, Hasan had appeared to have been “performing quite well.”
• Hasan’s neighbors said he cleaned out his apartment and left a phone message saying goodbye to a friend in the days before the shooting, the Associated Press reported. One neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Quran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday.
• Hasan’s relatives said in a statement Friday that his alleged actions were “despicable and deplorable” and don’t reflect how the family was raised.
• Hasan’s parents, now deceased, were Palestinian immigrants who owned a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., where Hasan and two brothers were raised, according to obituaries and other past articles in the Roanoke Times. Hasan’s parents were born near Jerusalem, the newspaper reported.
• The Army declined to rule out that others could have been involved in the shooting, one of the worst ever on a military base. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R.-Texas, told reporters at Fort Hood that authorities are asking, “is this something that’s just isolated — one deranged person — or is it something more? That’s the question on everyone’s mind.”
• Soldiers reported that the gunman shouted “Allahu Akbar!”— an Arabic phrase for “God is great!”— before opening fire, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the base commander. He said officials had not confirmed that Hasan made the comment.
The shooting spree began as some 300 soldiers had been lined up to get vaccinations and vision tests at a Soldier Readiness Center, where troops who are about to be deployed undergo medical screening. Nearby, others were lining up in commencement robes for a ceremony to celebrate soldiers and families who had recently earned educational degrees.
The manager of the apartment complex that Hasan lived in near Fort Hood said Hasan recently was involved in a spat with another soldier living there over Hasan’s religious beliefs. A bumper sticker that read “Allah is Love” was ripped off Hasan’s car, which was scratched with a key, said the manager, John Thompson.
Thompson said the neighbor had been in Iraq and was upset to learn that Hasan was Muslim.
Hasan’s mindset about his mission overseas wasn’t clear. Someone who used to work with Hasan said he had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but neighbors said he appeared fine with his pending deployment.
“I asked him how he felt about going over there, with their religion and everything, and he said, “It’s going to be interesting,’ ” said Edgar Booker, a retired soldier who now works in a cafeteria on the post.
The Associated Press reported that Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials six months ago because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press.
Federal authorities seized Hasan’s computer Friday during a search of his apartment, said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press because of the ongoing investigation.
President Obama ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings be at half-staff and urged people not to draw conclusions while authorities investigate. “We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” Obama said in a statement.
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