FORT HOOD, Tex. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended a memorial service Tuesday for victims of last week’s rampage at this Army post, honoring the 13 who were killed and meeting with many of the three dozen others who were wounded in the nation’s worst shooting on a military installation.
Obama’s visit came as investigators from the Army, the FBI and the Texas Rangers continued to gather evidence and explore a motive for the attack, in which Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan allegedly opened fire with two handguns on soldiers being processed for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirteen people were killed and 38 injured before civilian police shot Hasan four times, ending the rampage.
Hasan, 39, who is being treated at an Army hospital in San Antonio, was “coherent” during a meeting Monday with defense attorneys, who informed him that his rights as a defendant in the military justice system would be respected, one of the attorneys said.
Hasan is “aware that he’s a suspect, retired Col. John P. Galligan said on CBS’s “The Early Show” Tuesday. “But there were no formal charges that I could discuss with him.”
Investigators tried to interview Hasan on Sunday, but he refused to answer questions and requested a lawyer, U.S. officials said. Galligan, who was hired by Hasan’s family, and Maj. Christopher E. Martin, Fort Hood’s senior defense attorney, met with Hasan for about half an hour at Brooke Army Medical Center. Galligan later questioned whether Hasan could get a fair trial at Fort Hood, the Associated Press reported.
