A "heroic" female military police officer ended Wednesday’s Fort Hood shooting rampage by confronting the gunman.
The officer was only 20 feet from the shooter – named by officials as 34-year-old Iraq veteran Ivan A. Lopez – as he approached her in a parking lot at the Texas military base.
Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, Fort Hood’s commanding officer, said the officer drew her weapon after the suspect “reached out under his jacket” but the suspect put his weapon to his head and shot himself dead.
Lopez killed three service members and wounded 16 others before taking his own life Wednesday — just 4½ years after 13 people died in a shooting rampage on the same base.
The female police officer's actions appeared to prompt the end of the killing spree.
Earlier, Lopez had opened fire in one building on the base before getting into a vehicle and firing more shots there and in another building.
“What she did was heroic,” Milley told reporters late Wednesday. “She did her job and she did exactly what we’d expect from U.S. Army military police.”
Lopez was using a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol. Private firearms aren't allowed at Fort Hood, and the weapon — which Milley said was bought locally recently — wasn't registered with base authorities.
Lopez served four months in Iraq in 2011 and was being treated for depression and anxiety pending a possible diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Milley said he wasn't wounded in action but had "self-reported" a traumatic head injury.
- Alastair Jamieson
First published April 3 2014, 2:03 AM
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1j3J7O8
0 comments:
Post a Comment