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Defense Secretary Gates Orders Changes in Response to Fort Hood Shootings
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered policy and procedural changes at the U.S. Defense Department intended to minimize the likelihood of violent incidents such as last year’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.
Gates, in a 23-page memo released today, outlined steps ranging from improving Pentagon and FBI intelligence sharing about potential internal threats to giving local commanders greater access to personnel information that might flag potentially dangerous behavior.
“These initiatives will significantly improve the department’s ability to mitigate internal threats, ensure force protection, enable emergency response and provide care for victims and families,” Gates wrote. “The department will make every effort to safeguard civil liberties as it develops these policies and programs.”
The Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood left 13 people dead and 43 injured. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, has been charged by military authorities with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 of attempted murder. He awaits trial.
The changes Gates ordered today were recommended by an independent panel that reviewed the procedures the military had in place at the time of the shootings for protecting personnel.
Gates in his memo directed his undersecretary for intelligence to update the current list of threat indicators to include behavior that shows “self-radicalization.”
The memo also recommends improving commanders’ awareness of the symptoms of potential workplace violence and the tools available to address it.
Hasan entered the Army Medical Corps in June 1997 upon graduating from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, known as Virginia Tech. He got a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.
He served at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington from June 2003 to July 2010 as an intern, resident and then as a psychiatry fellow. He was promoted to major in May 2009, and moved to Fort Hood in July.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net;
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