Trump approves firing squad for Fort Hood shooter Hasan — SkimNews
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- President Trump approved death by firing squad for Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than two dozen at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2009 — the first US military execution by this method since 1961.
- Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced on X that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended and Trump approved the method, with the Secretary of the Army to set the execution's time and place.
- Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 by a military jury for the Al-Qaeda-inspired attack; he represented himself, called no witnesses, and gave no testimony, with court-appointed defense attorneys expressing concern that he was seeking execution.
- Hasan was shot and partially paralyzed by a responding civilian police officer; the court heard he was opposed to US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and had communicated online with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki before al-Awlaki's death in a US drone strike in Yemen.
- The source notes mass shootings at US military bases remain rare, citing recent incidents in Georgia (2025, 5 troops wounded), Hawaii (2019, 2 dead), Florida (2019, 3 dead by a Saudi military student), Tennessee (2015, 4 Marines and a sailor killed), and the Washington Navy Yard (12 killed).
- Twelve of the dead and 30 of the wounded at Fort Hood were soldiers, and the sprawling base served as a staging point for troops deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why it matters: The Pentagon's announcement that the Secretary of the Army will now set Hasan's execution date moves the 2009 Fort Hood case from more than a decade of legal proceedings into imminent implementation. Reviving a method the US military has not used since 1961 also marks a concrete policy choice by the Trump administration to deploy older execution protocols for a self-represented defendant who defense attorneys said wanted to die.
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