'It smelled like gunpowder in there' – Survivor

Rage of jihad recalled in detail

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan depicted by CCTV camera in on-base convenience store
on the day of the deadly assault that killed 13, wounded more than 30 persons

Ft. Hood – People were surprised, shocked when Maj. Abu Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire with an ultra-sophisticated semiautomatic handgun.

Sergeant Davis thought it was a pre-deployment drill when he heard “a popping” as he waited to receive an inoculation in a cubicle at the Soldier Readiness Center a few minutes after 1 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2009.

Only moments before, he told jurors as an Army prosecutor questioned him, a lady prepared to give him a shot, and then what he heard reminded him of M-16 rifles shooting blank rounds in a combat simulation exercise.

“I honestly thought it was a drill.”

Events suddenly came into sharp focus, became very real. “I saw somebody get hit. I saw blood spray. I told the lady who gave me a shot, 'This is not a drill. They're shooting people up there.'”

As he spoke, he stared into space, seeing events that occurred more than 3 years in the past as they unfolded in an unseen place only a few inches in front of his face.

He and the nurse began to make their way out of the building, heading for a rear entrance, when he took refuge under a desk with “someone I don't remember now.”

Sgt. Davis hid there for “I don't know how long,” when an older man ran by, shouting “Is somebody going to take this guy out?”

As he fled, “I heard a young lady screaming, 'My baby, my baby, my baby...”

Asked about the rate of fire, he said it was steady, then slapped the railing of the witness stand before him rapidly. “Pardon me,” said Col. Tara Osborn, the judge hearing the General Court Martial for 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 of premeditated attempted murder. She told the court reporter, “The record will show the witness rapped the rail seven times in staccato fashion.”

Grasping for his foremost impressions of that day when all hell broke loose, Sgt. Davis said, “It smelled like gunpowder in there...I heard somebody yelling Go, go, go!” When he stood up to make a run for it, “I got hit pretty hard in the back. I fell face first on the floor.”

When a lull in the onslaught of withering fire came, he made a run for Batallion Ave., caught a truck passing by and vaulted into the open cargo bed, where he tapped on the glass of the rear cab window, and said, “I'm shot. Would you please take me to the hospital?”

The driver took him straight to Darnall Army Community Hospital on post.

Asked where he was wounded, he said he was shot once, in the back.

“Did you have the bullet removed?”

“Yes.”

Where was it?

“It was lodged between the T-7 and C-1 vertabrae,” he replied.

When was that?

“They did that in 2011.”

The judge told him he was permanently dismissed, but to keep his mouth shut if anyone asks him questions about his testimony until he is finally released from the summons of the Court's subpoena.

He received his instructions stoically, standing as straight as a ramrod, then stalked away to the door that returns to the witness waiting area, his duty done, his mission accomplished.

Sparks fly again over attorneys' “ethical dillemma”

Television artist Brigitte Woosley puts the finishing touches on a sketch of Lt. Col.
 Kim Poppe asking for approval for he and his two colleagues to withdraw

Ft. Hood – The former lead attorney in the Hasan murder case requested clearance for he and his two colleagues to withdraw on ethical and moral grounds.

He objected on ethical and moral grounds, saying that an accused terrorist who murdered 13 persons in cold blood – and admits it – is being given the power to interpret rules of conduct and the law which an Army lawyer must follow.

Spectators at a genereral court martial at this Army outpost then witnessed a rare exchange of angry words between two high ranking officers as the third day of trial opened, then recessed again within minutes.

During a closed hearing yesterday afternoon, Wednesday, August 7, the second day of the trial, the military judge hearing the case against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan for mass murder and attempted murder had rejected a motion for modification of the role of his former defense team of three Army attorneys who have been relegated to standby status.

Maj. Hasan told the judge that Lt. Col. Kim Poppe had something further to say before the Court moved on to other issues.

“Your honor, we believe your order is forcing us to abandon our professional standards of conduct,” the Colonel said. He requested a stay of her order rejecting his request because, he said, “Maj. Hasan was in fact eliminating obstacles to a penalty of death,” in the opinion of the team of three defense lawyers Maj. Hasan fired in June.

"Major Hasan is competent to represent himself. Major Hasan chooses his strategy, not standby counsel," said the judge. "If you follow standby counsel's argument, then no standby counsel could fulfill the role, and that's simply not the case." 

“We're talking about what you have ordered us to do that prevents us from saving this man from the death penalty...We should withdraw, and that's what we're requesting,” said Col. Poppe.

“Colonel Poppe, you have anything in writing from your state bar that shows how this order violates ethical standards?”

The Colonel explained that state bar decisions require as long as 90 to 120 days to promulgate.

The judge repeated that she has asked the question numerous times and received no answer.

“Your honor, you have received the answer; you are not willing to accept the answer,” Col. Poppe replied.

When he uttered those words, the press gallery in a remote digital overflow courtroom gasped. It is unheard of to see learned counsel argue in those terms in any court.

Col. Osborn slapped down her ball point pen, and in an exasperted tone, she replied, “All right, Col. Poppe, I'm going to make it easy for you. I've given you an order; you are to do it, and if you do, you have no ethical responsibility.”

Col. Poppe immediately announced that he and his colleagues will seek a ruling from a higher military court on the matter.

When a few minutes later a proposed order was presented for the approval of the defendant, a non-attorney who is defending himself, he further objected, saying “Your honor,you are giving a pro se defendant the power to interpreet what is appropriate. He will have to decide if what you are ordering me to do is ethical.”

The judge agreed to reconsider the language of her ruling.

At that point, the lead prosecutor, Col. Michael Mulligan, interjected, saying he could not understand why the order to continue as standby counsel causes such moral and ethical issues.

The jurors were then admitted to the courtroom, and the prosecution called its first witness for the day.  

Interrogatory tells tale of two cities, same state

The "droll barber," with apologies to Mr. Charles Dickens, ink-stained wretch

Our far-flung correspondent, R.S. Gates, writes...

I got interested in a comparison of salaries and administrative and the number of assistants to the Commissioners Court in Bell County, as compared to McLennan. This is what I learned about the two corporate entities, their styles, the attitudes of their leadership.

An interesting aside is that Bell County enjoys a considerable budget surplus, while McLennan County is scrambling to deal with a huge deficit that will force salary and benefit cuts, budget cuts, a substantial tax rate increase for the second year, and much consternation. Nothing is really as simple as this, but it's a starting point.

Judge Burrows,

I live in McLennan County, and I am following the budget process here. Due to the similarities of our counties, I had a few questions.

What is your salary?

What is the salary of a County Commissioner?

Does each County Commissioner have an administrative assistant?

How many staff members are in your office?

Within two hours, the reply came.

Here is the requested information:

County Judge Total Salary/with state supplement - $125,888

Commissioners - $65,545

Does each Commissioner have an administrative assistant? – No

How many staff members? – We all share one. We are budgeted for two, but only one slot is currently filled.

Jon H. Burrows

Bell County Judge

An identical request to McLennan County Judge Scott Felton

Judge,

Please answer the following questions.

What is the current salary amount for the McLennan County Judge with state supplement?
What is the current salary of a County Commissioner?

How many staff members in your office?

How many staff members for the Commissioners?

A follow-up note to Judge Felton's three administrative assistants one week later.

I never heard back from the request below.

A reply from Dustin Chapman, counsel to the Judge, nearly two weeks hence:

I was forwarded your email to Judge Felton and asked to respond.  As you know, the (Texas Open Records) Act does not require a governmental entity to respond to interrogatories.  If you would like to change the format of your request and re-send, we will be happy to review it.
Thank you,

Dustin

Editor: As we all know, the Open Records Act does state in its preamble that the records of the State of Texas belong to the People of the State of Texas, and not the public servants of the State of Texas, who serve as custodians of those records, are not the arbiters of what it is good for the People of the State of Texas to know and not know.

- The Legendary

Hasan trial halted over death penalty allegation

Ft. Hood – More fireworks between the Fort Hood shooter and his former defense team erupted today.

The military judge cleared the courtroom to consider a motion of standby counsel alleging that Major Hasan is “working toward a death penalty” in the murder case against him.

He is charged with 13 specifications of premeditated murder and 32 specifications of attempted premeditated murder in a deadly handgun attack that occurred on Nov. 5, 2009.

Hasan fired his Army lawyers in June, but agreed with Col. Tara Osborn that they should be retained as standby counsel to advise him as to legal matters.

The three lawyers have previously objected to the court's direction on ethical grounds.

After sealing the motion by standby counsel to “Modify the Role of Standby Counsel,” the judge remarked “Col. Poppe, the motion is styled as a motion to modify the role of standby counsel, but the body of the motion is concerned with privileged communication between Maj. Hasan and an expert jury consultant, and ends with an offer to withdraw as standby counsel, so it appears to be a world unto itself...”

The press gallery seated in the digital courtroom in a remote location erupted in laughter. Spectators in the courtroom itself are under a strict admonition not to display any outbursts or demonstrations of opinion on pain of ejection. Everyone in the actual courtroom remained stoically quiet and militarily courteous.

“Why did you wait until now to file this motion?” the judge asked.

“The fundamental issue became clear as to his (Hasan's) goal and his goal is to remove impedimens to the death penalty in working toward a death penalty,” Col. Kris Poppe, lead standby counsel replied. “We do hold the view that the voir dire (jury examination) was wholly inadequate.” He argued that the “multitude of issues” became “crystallized yesterday.”

“It appears to me to be a difference in stategy...in not exercising a peremptory challenge,” the judge replied. Peremptory strikes of a cetrtain number of prospective jurors are allowed defendants and prosecutors for no particular reason. In this case, the judge said, the defendant could have exercised the right to dismiss a prospective juror due to his or her acceptace or agreement with the death penalty. “Some people use that as a strategy,” said Col. Osborn.

Col. Poppe continued his argument, concluding it is the desire of he and his two colleagues “that we not be ordered by the Court in assisting in the goal of arriving at the death penalty.”

In the future, the judge ruled, all motions from standby counsel must be submitted to the Court ex parte and under seal until she has had a chance to review them.

Before closing the court to all spectators, the judge did determine that the standby counsel are still willing to replace Hasan if she chooses to reinstate them as his defense team.

“We'll be ready to go at any time, should Maj. Hasan's pro se status change,” Col. Poppe replied.

Maj. Hasan insisted he wanted to proceed to the hearing immediately.

“I want to do that now,” he declared.

“Are you specifically waiving any privilege? Am I forcing you to do this?” the judge asked.

“I don't think it is what you think it is,” Hasan said, again prompting laughter among the press corps watching the proceedings on big screen televisions in an overflow digital courtroom.

“I want that in writing,” Col. Osborn said.

Hasan refused. He insisted that Col. Poppe's allegations about his working toward a death penalty are inaccurate.

The judge moved to a private hearing, then within the hour, announced that court proceedings will resume at 9 a.m. on Thursday, August 8.

Six-foot, nine – standing tall to point out Hasan

'I decided to play dead,' medic recalls

National media descends on Ft. Hood for first day of Hasan trial

Ft. Hood – Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, a veteran Army medic, ran Station 13 of the Soldier Readiness Program like a finely honed machine. No detail escapes him today, three and a half years after his last duty day.

The small waiting area, less than 20 by 20 feet, held 4 rows of 11 folding chairs, except the last row, which held 12, for a total seating of 45 soldiers who snaked through the chairs from the top left corner to the bottom right like ball bearings in a pinball machine.

From there they fanned out through a myriad of other stations for routine health assessment, blood draw, inoculations, examination for traumatic brain injury, flu shots, routine physicals – the works.

On the 5^th of November, 2009, Alonzo ate his lunch in the break room. When he came back just after l p.m., he saw Hasan sitting front and center in Chair 45, elbows on his knees, eyes downcast. You could tell as Sgt. Lunsford testified, it didn't look good, and he didn't make it sound any better with his words.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen him. Hasan had trouble with the staff in an earlier incident during the previous week when he didn't want to renew his flu shot. They turned him over to the officer in charge – who, predictably, "chastised" him for making waves.

And then, the bottom fell out. Hasan approached the data entry clerk, a woman named LaToya Williams, and spoke to her. She left. Earlier testimony revealed he tricked her into believing the officer in charge wanted her in her office.

Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” and cut loose with his pistol.

“Soldiers hit the deck,” said Sgt. Lunsford. He saw Chief Cahill, a retired Warrant Officer who now worked as a provider in the medical cubicles of the readiness program, try to run him down with a chair, and he saw the retiree, who was now working Station 13 as a civilian, fall, the victim of Hasan's bullets.

At first, Sgt. Lunsford crouched behind the counter, then he hit the prone position and started the low crawl. The laser sight's beam hit him in the eyes, and he blinked to keep it from blinding him.

And then the first bullet hit him just below his left eye. He kept his head glued to the deck. “I decided to play dead,” though blood was pooling on the floor below his face.

It worked, for awhile, but then, “I remembered, dead men don't sweat.” Conditioning and training in escape and evasion techniques took over. An old soldier got busy doing his stuff.

He decided to make a run for it; Hasan shot him six more times for his efforts, five times in the body and once more in the head. Blinded by blood, his heart racing, he ran through the double doors on the south end of the building, and when he hit the end of the pavement, he cartwheeled down a grassy embankment. He asked his rescuers if he was finally clear of the building. They said yes, to calm down and let them give him triage care.

He did a self assessment and realized he could still wiggle his fingers and toes. As three courageous individuals worked on him, he saw Hasan come out the back door of building 42003, pistol blazing.

When the prosecutor asked him if he saw the man who shot him, he raised up and look Hasan in the eye, pointed at him, and said, “That's him, there.”

Ten soldiers fell in the small confines of Station 13, and then Hasan walked into a rear area of the building staffed by many civilians whom he did not attack. Three more soldiers perished while trying to hide in plain sight – one of them behind an IV stand, witnesses recall.

Michelle Harper is a phlebotomist who works in a blood draw station, and has for the past 6 years.

She and other female civilian medical technicians worked at a long row of tables. They were having a leisurely chat after lunch when, “At first all we heard was something that sounded like firecrackers – what we believed to be firecrackers. At first, we made it under the desk.”

That's when she dialed 911.

As the questions came at her rapid fire, she sobbed, and Col. Tara Osborn, the military judge in the case, instructed Chief Prosecutor Michael Mulligan to slow down.

The judge told Ms. Harper to wait outside the courtroom.

As the 911 tape played, you could hear her screaming in terror, the rapid fire of Hasan's pistol, and the ragged moaning and rattling breath of a mortally wounded man, Specialist Michael Pearson, who taking his last few breaths. He expires during the audio tape.

When she escaped the carnage, Ms. Harper saw Hasan come out the back door, where she caught a brief glimpse of he and Officer Kim Munley trading fire in a gunfight, as Hasan wounded the officer twice. Panicked, Ms. Harper jumped in her car and ran through a ditch, her cell phone in her hand, talking to dispatchers all the while, and ended up on another street.

As the 911 tape played and people listened to her testimony, people looked anywhere but at each other, or at her. During those hellish moments, everyone seemed to be ashamed to look their fellow man or woman in the eye.

Testimony and presentation of evidence resumes at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, August 7. 

Hasan cross examines his former boss, overruled

Ft. Hood - Major Hasan broke his silence to cross examine his former boss shortly before the noon recess.

The former chief of psychiatry at Darnall Army Hospital on post, retired Lt. Col. Ben Phillips testified that he gave Hasan the highest rating “outstanding, must promote,” as he did the other 15 to 20 psychiatrists under his supervision, because he had no alternative “unless I wanted to basically end their careers.”

Other ratings include satisfactory, should promote, unsatisfactory, do not promote, and “other.” Any of the three ratings can end a career, he explained.

It was Dr. Phillips who informed the former Army psychiatrist that he would be deployed to Afghanistan following a transfer to Ft. Benning, Georgia, on Nov. 28. He approved a period of leave for Hasan.

When the government passed the witness, Hasan, who is defending himself, asked him about some Army personnel who “killed unarmed female civilians,” poured 50 gallons of gasoline in the water supply, and allowed medical staff to engage in mercy killings of wounded Afghanis.

Chief Prosecutor Col. Michael Mulligan immediately objected that the line of questioning is beyond that which he opened on direct examination. The judge explained to Hasan that he cannot question a government witness about anything that the prosecution has not already inquired about.

Other witnesses testified about signs of strange behavior. A neighbor, Patricia Villa, testified that he gave here numerous personal items and $60 to clean his one-bedroom apartment on Nov. 5, 2009, the day of the shooting. He said he would not be returning.

She said she was never got a chance to clean the dwelling because “That was when everything happened.” Law men poured onto the property and began to search Hasan’s apartment, she explained, in the early afternoon. She gave the items he had given her to FBI crime evidence technicians.

On the morning of the day of the shooting, a fellow Islamic faithful described how the Imam at the Killeen Islamic Center had designated him to lead the call to morning prayer. In a surprise move, recalled Pat Santi, Hasan came forward and took the microphone before he could get it, led the call to prayers, and then “He bid us goodbye and told the congregation he was going home.”

He agreed that Hasan’s behavior startled him.

Hasan says he was on wrong side in war of terror

Ft. Hood - In a voice choking with emotion, Maj. Abu Nidal Malik Hasan followed a detailed opening by an Army prosecutor by saying the evidence will show he is the shooter who killed 13 unarmed soldiers and wounded 32 on Nov. 5, 2009.

“But the evidence will only show one side.”

Regaining his composure, he finished by saying, “The evidence will show I was on the wrong side.”

According to the Army prosecutor, Hasan targeted only uniformed soldiers and two police officers.

One civilian, a retired Chief Warrant Officer named Cahill who was manning one of the stations in the medical facility, rushed him “armed only with a chair,” the prosecutor said. He would fall victim to the onslaught of deadly fire directed by twin red and green laser sights mounted on a pistol Hasan bought because “it is the most technologically advanced weapon of its type.”

The attack began at 1:20 p.m. when Hasan approached receptionist La Toya Williams in area 13 where he sat with 45 soldiers in a reception area of the Soldier Readiness Center. He told her the Officer in Charge wanted to see her in his office. Though she thought it a strange request, she obeyed him because he was wearing the uniform of a Major.

When she cleared the area, Hasan began to target only soldiers, sparing civilians, and aiming for men and women wearing the Army Combat Uniform.

The evidence will show that he was armed with an FN Herstal 5.7 x 28 mm semiautomatic pistol he bought at Guns Galore shortly after he moved to Killeen. He had loaded 16 magazines which he transported in the cargo pockets of his uniform trousers, padded with paper towels to keep them from clanking together as he walked. He also had a fully loaded .357 caliber revolver, which was found unused after he had been paralyzed by a shot from a 9 millimeter pistol fired into his chest by a military police officer named Michael Todd.

In the days leading to the shooting rampage, Maj. Hasan told a sergeant and another doctor with whom he served as a psychiatrist that he was opposed to being deployed to Afghanistan. “They have another think coming if they think they are going to deploy me,” he told the doctor.

He spent part of the morning before he reported to the Soldier Readiness Center at his apartment reading an article he had downloaded onto his laptop computer, an article written by a Taliban Imam who called for his followers to engage in religious jihad against soldiers of America and other allied nations.

In the course of the trial, jurors will hear three 911 calls placed by civilian women who hid under their desks while the shooting rampage unfolded. They will see dashcam videos made by patrol cars of officers who responded to the emergency, and view video and crime scene photos as well as autopsy photos, hear FBI agents’ testimony regarding ballistics reports tracing the trajectories of rounds that missed their targets, and hear the reports of medical examiners and eyewitnesses.

The prosecutor stressed that the entire attack lasted only minutes, but during those few minutes, Hasan expended more than 80 rounds of the armor-piercing ammunition, that he targeted only uniformed soldiers.

Testimony continues as the prosecution called the first witness shortly after 10 a.m. local time.