Fort Hood shooting suspect in stable condition…

We usually try to keep the new light-hearted, but we had to report this. Yesterday, there was a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas’s army base killing a number of people.. Our praises go out to the family.

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Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) — The suspect in Thursday’s deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, is in stable condition, the hospital commander at the base said Friday.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist practicing at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, was shot multiple times and was taken into custody, ending the shooting rampage Thursday afternoon, Fort Hood officials said.

The gunman opened fire at a military processing center at Fort Hood, killing one civilian and 12 soldiers, said Col. John Rossi, deputy commanding general at Fort Hood.

Among those killed was 21-year-old Pfc. Michael Pearson of Bolingbrook, Illinois, his family told the Chicago Tribune. Pearson had joined the Army slightly more than a year ago, his mother, Sheryll, told the newspaper.

“He was working for a furniture company and felt like he wasn’t going anywhere,” his mother was quoted as saying.

Of the 30 people wounded in the attack, 28 are hospitalized and in stable condition, Rossi said at a news conference Friday morning. Hasan is the sole suspect in the shootings, Rossi said.

Authorities are investigating whether any of the killed or wounded were struck accidentally by someone trying to shoot the gunman, Rossi said.

Hasan was reported to have been wearing his uniform when he opened fire, said Col. Steven Braverman, hospital commander at Fort Hood. Braverman said Hasan had received orders to deploy to Afghanistan.

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Earlier Friday, officers raided Hasan’s apartment, searching for clues as to what caused him to allegedly gun down soldiers he had taken an oath to help, a police spokeswoman said.

In the nearby town of Killeen, a SWAT team and FBI agents were searching Hasan’s apartment to help determine what caused the shooting, which military experts called the worst mass shooting at an American military base, Carol Smith, a Killeen police spokeswoman, said early Friday.

As investigators gathered evidence, details began to emerge about the alleged shooter.

Hasan, 39, is a graduate of Virginia Tech and a psychiatrist licensed in Virginia. He previously worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

A federal official said Hasan is a U.S. citizen of Jordanian descent. Military documents show Hasan was born in Virginia and has never deployed outside the United States.

An owner of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Fort Hood said Hasan, whom he knows as “Major Nidal,” came in for coffee and hash browns most mornings, including the morning of the shootings.

Surveillance video from the store obtained by CNN shows a man, who according to the store owner is Hasan, at the cashier’s counter at about 6:20 a.m. Thursday carrying a beverage and dressed in traditional Arab garb. That was about seven hours before the mass shooting.

“He looked normal, came in, had his hash browns and coffee as you see in the surveillance video,” the owner told CNN.

Other surveillance footage from Tuesday showed him wearing hospital scrubs.

Hasan’s first cousin, Nader Hasan, issued a statement late Thursday on behalf of their family, saying they are “shocked and saddened” by the shootings.

“We are filled with grief for the families of today’s victims,” the statement says. “Our family loves America. We are proud of our country and saddened by today’s tragedy. Because this situation is still unfolding, we have nothing else that we are able to share with you at this time.”

The shooting occurred in a building called the readiness center, one of the last stops before soldiers deploy and one of the first places soldiers go upon returning to the United States.

Some of the victims were headed to Iraq or Afghanistan, said Col. Benton Danner.

At a news conference Thursday, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said the shooter had two handguns, one of them a semi-automatic.

“All the casualties took place at the initial incident, that took place at 13:30, at the soldier readiness facility,” Cone said, referring in military time to 1:30 p.m.

A witness in a building adjacent to where the shooting happened said soldiers were cutting up their uniforms into homemade bandages as the wounded were brought into the building.

“It was total chaos,” the witness said.

Cone noted that a graduation ceremony was being held in an auditorium about 50 yards away from where the shooting took place.

“Thanks to the quick reaction of several soldiers, they were able to close off the doors to that auditorium where there were some 600 people inside,” he said.

President Obama called the shootings “tragic” and “a horrific outburst of violence.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered that all flags in the state be lowered to half-staff until Sunday as a tribute to the victims.

“We are deeply saddened by today’s events but resolve to continue supporting our troops and protecting our citizens,” he said.

In the aftermath of the incident, Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, posted an online appeal for blood as it began receiving victims.

“Due to the recent events on Fort Hood, we are in URGENT need of ALL blood types,” it said.

Fort Hood is the Army’s largest U.S. post, with about 40,000 troops stationed there. It is home to the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division and elements of the 4th Infantry Division, as well as the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 13th Corps Support Command. It is near Killeen, Texas. The Headquarters Unit and three brigades of the 1st Cavalry are deployed in Iraq.

The fort is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which helps soldiers returning from war with combat stress and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In June, Fort Hood’s commander, Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, told CNN that he was trying to ease the kind of stresses soldiers face.

He has pushed for soldiers working a day schedule to return home for dinner by 6 p.m. and required his personal authorization for anyone working weekends. At the time, two soldiers stationed there had committed suicide in 2009 — a rate well below those of other posts.

Nearby Killeen was the scene of one of the most deadly shootings in American history 18 years ago when George Hennard crashed his truck into a Luby’s cafeteria and then began shooting, killing 23 people and wounding 20.

Hennard’s spree lasted 14 minutes. He eventually took his own life.