ATLANTA (AP) — The shooting of five U.S. Army soldiers at a base in Georgia on Wednesday is the latest in a growing list of violent incidents at American military installations over the years. Shootings have ranged from isolated incidents between service members to attacks on bases to mass-casualty events, such as the shooting by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’s Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.
Here is a look at some of the shootings at U.S. military bases in recent years:
In December, a National Guard soldier was charged with murder after authorities said he shot a man at a former girlfriend’s residence on the grounds of Fort Gordon. The base outside of Augusta, Georgia, is home to the U.S. Army Cyber Command. It was formerly known as Fort Eisenhower.
In June 2020, a woman and a man were killed in a shooting at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. The woman’s parents later told media outlet KJZZ in Phoenix that she was the victim of domestic violence.
In May 2020, a gunman tried to speed through a security gate at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, opening fire and wounding a sailor who was a member of base security, authorities said. Security officers shot and killed the attacker, Adam Salim Alsahli, a Corpus Christi resident who had been a student at a local community college. The FBI said at the time that the shooting was being investigated as a “terror-related incident.” A group that monitors online activity of jihadists said Alsahli voiced support for hard-line clerics.
On Dec. 6, 2019, a Saudi Air Force officer who was training at a Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, killed three U.S. sailors and wounded eight other people in a shooting that U.S. officials described as an act of terrorism. The country’s top federal law enforcement officials said the gunman, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, had been in touch with al-Qaida operatives about planning and tactics. Alshamrani was killed by a sheriff’s deputy.
On Dec. 4, 2019, a U.S. Navy sailor used his service rifle to shoot three civilian shipyard workers at the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before killing himself with his service pistol. Gabriel Antonio Romero, 22, of San Antonio, Texas, was said to be unhappy with his commanders and undergoing counseling, although a motive for the shooting was not determined.
In February 2017, a sailor was fatally shot at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach by a security officer after he crashed through a station gate and went to his squadron’s hangar. Seaman Robert Colton Wright was reported to be “yelling and causing damage” and moving aggressively toward security officers until one of the officers fired, striking him. Wright worked as an information systems technician for Strike Fighter Squadron 81.
In April 2016, an airman fatally shot his commander before shooting himself at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Military investigators said Tech Sgt. Steven Bellino, 41, confronted Lt. Col. William Schroeder in an office before the two struggled, and Schroeder was shot multiple times. The men, both veterans of the U.S. Special Operations Command, were in the Air Force’s elite Battlefield Airmen program at Lackland.
In July 2015, four Marines and a sailor were killed by Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, of Hixson, Tennessee, who opened fire at a recruiting center in Chattanooga. He then drove several miles away to a Navy and Marine reserve center, where he shot and killed the Marines and wounded the sailor, who later died. Abdulazeez was shot to death by police.
In April 2014, an Army soldier gunned down three other military men at Fort Hood in Texas before killing himself. Authorities said that Spc. Ivan Lopez had an argument with colleagues in his unit before opening fire.
In September 2013, a defense contract employee and former Navy reservist used a valid pass to get onto the Washington Navy Yard. Authorities said Aaron Alexis killed 12 people before he was killed in a gunbattle with police, authorities said. The Washington Navy Yard is an administrative center for the U.S. Navy and the oldest naval installation in the country.
In November 2009, Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood. He said he was angry about being deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders from U.S. troops. It was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in U.S. history. The Department of Defense called the attack an act of workplace violence, not terrorism.
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Finley reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.
