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Trump Orders Firing Squad for Fort Hood Killer
More than 16 years after a U.S. Army psychiatrist opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, President Donald Trump has approved a military firing squad to execute the man convicted of the massacre.
DoW photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Eric Brann
If carried out, it would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961 and the first known American military firing-squad execution in more than 80 years.
On November 5, 2009, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan walked into a medical facility at Fort Hood, Texas, where soldiers undergo medical checks before deployments. Armed with a laser-sighted handgun, he opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others.
Twelve of those killed were active-duty soldiers. The 13th was a retired serviceman.
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Hasan was shot by a civilian police officer responding to the attack and survived but was left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
The case then moved into one of the longest and most consequential military death-penalty proceedings in modern U.S. history.
In August 2013, a military jury convicted Hasan on 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder and sentenced him to death. Hasan largely did not contest the evidence against him. During the trial, he described himself as a soldier who had “switched sides” and argued that he was acting to prevent U.S. troops from fighting Muslims in Afghanistan.
For more than a decade, the death sentence remained un carried.
That changed this week.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended that Hasan be executed by an Army firing squad, and Trump approved the recommendation. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the decision, saying the Secretary of the Army would determine when and where the execution takes place.
The method itself makes the decision historic.
The U.S. military has not executed anyone since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl. The last known U.S. military execution by firing squad was carried out by musketry in 1945.
That means Hasan's execution, if it happens, would revive a form of military punishment that has been absent from the American armed forces for generations.
But Trump's approval does not mean Hasan will be executed immediately. Legal appeals could still delay the process, potentially for years.
The decision also comes as America's wider debate over capital punishment has intensified. The Trump administration has expanded the methods available for federal executions, while a recent botched lethal injection in Tennessee has renewed questions about whether firing squads could become a more prominent alternative.
For the families of the Fort Hood victims, however, the story began long before the legal debate over execution methods.
It began on a Texas military base on November 5, 2009, when 13 Americans went to a medical facility and never came home.
Now, more than a decade later, the U.S. Army is preparing for a punishment it has not carried out in 65 years.
Editor’s Note: Trump has approved the execution, but the Army has not announced a date. Hasan remains entitled to pursue available legal challenges. The death sentence was imposed by a military jury after his 2013 conviction.
