Four dead in Fort Hood shooting, including gunman

Ivan Lopez, the shooter in the April 2, 2014 rampage on Fort Hood that killed 3 people and injured more than a dozen, is seen in an undated photo taken from his Facebook page. Ivan Lopez, the shooter in the April 2, 2014 rampage on Fort Hood that killed 3 people and injured more than a dozen, is seen in an undated photo taken from his Facebook page. Photo: Courtesy, Facebook Photo: Courtesy, Facebook Image 1 of / 87 Caption Close Four dead in Fort Hood shooting, including gunman 1 / 87 Back to Gallery

FORT HOOD — An Iraq War veteran under diagnosis for PTSD opened fire at Fort Hood Wednesday, killing three people and wounding 16 others before turning the gun on himself, officials said.

At a news conference late Wednesday at Fort Hood, Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley said a military police officer witnessed the shooter's self-inflicted wound, moments after she tried confronting him.

While Milley wouldn't identify the soldier, U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican congressman who represents part of Harris County and chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, identified the shooter as Ivan Lopez, an Iraq war veteran.

Milley said the shooter had arrived in Fort Hood in February from another institution in Texas. He said the shooter was undergoing treatment for depression, anxiety, and other disorders.

Milley also said the shooter used a semi automatic pistol that he had purchased recently. He said it's not clear if the shooter knew the victims or if the shooting was prompted by an argument. He said authorities are not ruling out terrorism.

Fort Hood's director of emergency services received an initial report that the shooter was dead around 6:30 p.m. “Tonight, Texans' hearts are once again very heavy,” said Sen. John Cornyn in a statement. “The scenes coming from Fort Hood today are sadly too familiar and still too fresh in our memories. No community should have to go through this horrific violence once, let alone twice.”

Michelle Lee, spokeswoman for the FBI in San Antonio, said the FBI had “no indication” the shooting at Fort Hood is related to a alert sent by the agency in recent days regarding an Army recruit named Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, aka “Booker,” who was discharged in February from a Kansas City, Mo., base.

An alert sent March 20 by the Kansas City FBI Division that was titled “Planned Fort Hood-inspired Jihad against US Soldiers by Army Recruit” and stated Booker had publicly stated his intent to harm soldiers, according to Fox News.

Lee, though, confirmed Booker has been deemed not to be a threat after investigators met with him.

“Obviously, we're all following it closely,” President Barack Obama said in a statement to reporters in Chicago. “The situation is fluid right now. But my national security team in close contact with not just the Defense Department but with the FBI. They are working with folks on the ground to determine exactly what happened and ensure that everybody is secure. And I want to just assure all of us we going to get to bottom of exactly what happened.”

Fort Hood has a population of more than 50,000, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

The post was the scene of a shooting nearly five years ago that left 13 people dead, 12 of them soldiers, and dozens of others wounded.

A Fort Hood psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, was given the death sentence in that case last summer.

“Any shooting is troubling,” Obama said. “Obviously this reopened pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago. We know these families, we know the service to their country and the sacrifices that they make. Obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the entire community and we are going to do everything we can to make sure the community of Fort Hood has what it needs to deal with a tough situation but also any potential aftermath.”

Residents on the base described a chaotic, noisy, scary scene Wednesday afternoon.

Brooke Chatha, 22, was in the kitchen doing the dishes when she heard base alarms sounding.

“Those alarms go off a lot, thought it was just another drill,” said Chatha, who lives on the base with her 4-month-old child and her husband, a soldier who works in the base's motor pool.

A friend started texting her, asking if she was OK.

“That's when I started looking up and everything that was going on,” she told the Houston Chronicle. That was about 5 p.m.

“It's a little frustrating,” she said. Her husband was still at work, and his commanders were talking about not releasing him until 2 a.m., she said.

“He was texting me a little bit [after the shooting], he hasn't texted since, I have no idea if he knows anyone who got hurt,” she said.

As she was speaking, the base's sirens went off again.

She lives by the base's main gate. Normally, toward the end of the day, traffic streams out of the base about 5 p.m.

“Nobody was outside, there was nothing. I was told by a friend not to go outside...there was a helicopter flying right above our house and all you could here were sirens — and they went on for an hour or two.”

Staff writers Drew Joseph and Guillermo Contreras contributed to this report. Houston Chronicle Staff Writer St. John Barned-Smith also contributed.

mdwilson@express-news.net

Twitter: @MDWilsonSA