Shooting with casualties reported at Ft. Hood

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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHOOTER IVAN LOPEZ

Officials at Fort Hood have released few details about Specialist Ivan Lopez, but here's what we do know:

He is married, has other family members and lives in the Fort Hood area, having arrived at the post in February from another military base in Texas.

He was assigned to the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) at Fort Hood, which is a logistics and support unit.

He is a specialist, which is one of the four junior enlisted ranks in the US Army.

It is just above private first class and has an equivalent pay grade to a corporal.

Officials said he was not in the process of leaving the Army.

Lopez served for four months in Iraq in 2011. He was not wounded in action while serving overseas, but self-reported a traumatic brain injury upon his return to the U.S.

'He was not a wounded warrior,' said Lt. General Mark Milley, the senior officer at Fort Hood.

'He was not wounded in action, to our records, no Purple Heart, not wounded in action in that regard.'

Lopez had several mental health issues. He was taking medication and receiving psychiatric help for depression and anxiety and was undergoing a process to determine whether he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

'We do not know a motive,' Milley said. 'We do know that this soldier had behavioural health and mental health issues, and was being treated for that.'

Lopez had one weapon, a .45-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun, that was not registered with post authorities as required.

Authorities don't yet know how much ammunition he was carrying.

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Photo, details emerge about troubled Fort Hood gunman

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/03/ft-hood-shooting-that-left-four-dead-was-reportedly-soldier-on-soldier-incident/

Fort Hood gunman
Published April 03, 2014
FoxNews.com
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    Lopez3.jpg

    Sources who knew Lopez, the Fort Hood gunman who killed three and wounded 16 before fatally shooting himself at Fort Hood Wednesday, was angry about not being able to attend his mother's funeral.

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The Iraq War veteran who opened fire at the Fort Hood military base Wednesday afternoon, killing three, wounding 16 and then fatally shooting himself, was a married 34-year-old Army specialist who was being treated for mental illness, authorities said.

Army Spc. Ivan Antonio Lopez, who was from Puerto Rico and had joined the island's National Guard in 1999, had only been assigned to Fort Hood earlier this year, working as a truck driver. Officials have so far not said what Lopez's motive was, and while Army Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the senior officer at the facility, said Wednesday evening there was no indication of terrorism, he added "we're not ruling anything out."

On Thursday, Edgardo Arlequin, the mayor of Lopez?s hometown of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, confirmed to Fox News Latino that the photo above was Lopez, who was named as the shooter Wednesday night by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Lopez?s friends in his hometown suggested that the sudden death of his mother and grandfather within a two-month period five months ago, could have been what triggered his deadly rampage.

Lopez, who Fox News learned was previously assigned to Fort Bliss, was armed with a .45 caliber Smith & Wesson and turned the gun on himself when confronted by a female military police officer in a parking lot of the base, near Killeen, Texas. Lopez, who had served four months in Iraq in 2011, was married with four children and had arrived at Fort Hood in February.

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Fort Hood gunman may have had angry words with fellow soldiers before rampage, Army says

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/03/ft-hood-shooting-that-left-four-dead-was-reportedly-soldier-on-soldier-incident/?intcmp=latestnews

Fort Hood gunman Ivan Lopez may have had angry words with fellow soldiers before opening fire on the military base and killing three, wounding 16 and then turning the gun on himself, an Army official said Thursday.

Lopez, an Army specialist from Puerto Rico who had been treated for mental problems, was stopped when a Military Police officer confronted him, her gun drawn. Otherwise, the massacre could've been far worse, said Army Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, who was unable to ascribe a motive to the shooting.

"We?re trying to figure out what the trigger event was," Milley told reporters, saying investigators are working to determine whether the shooting was pre-meditated.

A ?verbal altercation? with another soldier or soldiers may have ?immediate preceded shooting,? Milley said, adding that there are ?strong indications? that?s what sparked the shooting.

"At this point we have not yet ruled out anything whatsoever," Milley said. "We have no indications at this time of any links to terrorist organizations of any type ? national or international."

Lopez, a married father of four, had only been assigned to Fort Hood earlier this year, working as a truck driver. But Lopez posted a chilling update on his Facebook page, accusing two men of robbing him and possibly hinting that he was on the brink of snapping, Fox News Latino reported.

"I have just lost my inner peace, full of hatred, I think this time the devil will take me," Lopez wrote in the March 1 post.

Edgardo Arlequin, the mayor of Lopez?s hometown of Guayanilla, Puerto Rico, told Fox News Latino Lopez had been distraught over the deaths of his mother and grandfather within a two-month period five months ago. Arlequin said that the Army initially denied Lopez permission to travel to Puerto Rico to attend his mother?s funeral, but later gave him 24 hours to attend.

Lopez, who served four months in Iraq and who was previously assigned to Fort Bliss, received several awards during his nine years of service, according to the military record obtained by Fox News. 

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Fort Hood gunman vented on Facebook about Sandy Hook shooter, Iraq

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/05/us/fort-hood-gunman-facebook/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

(CNN) -- Spc. Ivan Lopez vented about a range of subjects on Facebook before his shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas, including his outrage at Adam Lanza's mass school shooting in Connecticut.

He wrote of experiencing overpowering fear after an insurgent attack in Iraq and the hatred that consumed him after getting "robbed."

Lopez took his own .45-caliber handgun onto the sprawling post Wednesday and killed three people and wounded 16 more before taking his own life, according to authorities.

They are trying to piece together what in his background and psychiatric treatment could have triggered a new round of bloodshed at the same Killeen post where an officer killed 13 people in 2009.

A 34-year-old Iraq war veteran with a history of depression and anxiety, Lopez was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder before his shooting spree. He arrived at the post in February after being transferred from Fort Bliss in El Paso.

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Fort Hood shooter snapped over denial of request for leave, Army confirms

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/04/07/fort-hood-shooter-snapped-over-denial-request-for-leave-army-confirms/

Fort Hood shooter Ivan Lopez's rampage followed an argument over the denial of his request for leave and did not appear to be due to some ongoing mental problem, an Army official said Monday.


The word came as officials announced findings of their ongoing investigation, which included interviews with more than 1,100 people and a recreation of the shooting last Wednesday, which left four dead including Lopez, and 16 injured.

?We only have one suspect,? said Chris Grey, spokesman for the Army?s Criminal Investigation Command. ?We are fully committed to this investigation and we will continue to pursue investigatively all leads."

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http://www.stink-eye.net/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=22008.30;num_replies=34

On April 7th, First Lieutenant Patrick Cook of the 49th Transportation Battalion, Fort Hood, posted an open letter to Congress explaining the helpless condition he found himself in when Army Spc. Ivan Lopez opened fire on April 2nd.

The helplessness was due to restrictions that prevented Cook and other soldiers from being armed.

Cook wrote:

    When the first shots rang out, my hand reached to my belt for something that wasn't there. Something that could have put a stop to the bloodshed, could have made it merely an "ugly incident" instead of the horrific massacre that I will surely remember as the darkest twenty minutes of my life.

    Stripped of my God-given Right to arm myself, the only defensive posture I had left was to lie down prostrate on the ground, and wait to die.

Cook said he watched as Sergeant First Class Daniel Ferguson recieved a gunshot wound that would prove fatal, yet continued to press his body against a door to keep Lopez from entering the room. Cook said: "I can still taste [Ferguson's] blood in my mouth from