The fifth day in the trial of accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan opened Monday with the testimony of a nurse who called 911 on the day of the shooting.
Shemeka Hairston cried as the prosecution played the 911 recording for the courtroom.
The former #forthood nurse who made the 911 call from her cell phone sobbed on the witness stand as her hysterical voice is heard. @NBCDFW
— Ken Kalthoff (@KenKalthoffNBC5) August 12, 2013
From the local Killeen Daily Herald:
“Oh God, help me,” Hairston said as the operator repeatedly asked her the location of the shooting.
[…]
Hairston cried as the prosecution played an audio recording of the call. She later told the jury at one point she opened her eyes and saw a soldier stand up during a pause in the gunshots.
“His eyes got big and he fell,” she told the court.
Hairston’s sobs could be heard in a hallway outside of the courtroom after her testimony ended. She was the first of 10 witnesses that have testified so far today.
Hairston’s testimony was followed by at least thirteen other witnesses throughout the day, including that of retired Lt. Col. Randy Lee Royer, who was also shot on that day.
Ret. LTC Randy Royer last witness to testify. Shot in leg and forearm, and required assistance of cane to walk to stand. #Hasan
— Phil Jankowski ? (@PhilJankowski) August 12, 2013
Royer: After shooting, "It had gotten deathly quiet. #Hasan #FortHood
— Phil Jankowski ? (@PhilJankowski) August 12, 2013
Royer: "I could see all the blood, the crumpled uniforms I assumed were soldiers. … It was carnage. #FortHood #Hasan
— Phil Jankowski ? (@PhilJankowski) August 12, 2013
Another witness who testified, army social worker Capt. Dorothy Ellen Carskadon, told the court she thought the November 2009 shooting was a training exercise, according to CNN.
Carskadon said she heard Pvt. Francheska Velez screaming “my baby, my baby” as she cradled her stomach. She crawled to Velez and tried to comfort her, telling the private that it would be OK and that the training exercise would end soon. Velez died in the attack.
Carskadon noticed blood dripping from her own head and tried to stand, but her leg went numb. As she fell, she was shot in the stomach. She collapsed and thought to herself, “I’m through with this field exercise and I chose not to move anymore.”
She awoke in a hospital intensive care unit with four gunshot wounds: one that grazed her head; another through her right hip; a third lodged in her right leg; and a fourth in the abdomen.
Hasan, who is representing himself, has so far only cross examined two witnesses since the start of the trial, neither of them soldiers injured by his gunshots.
From the Associated Press (via Huffington Post):
But so far, Hasan has said little in his defense. The Army psychiatrist mostly watched in silence as more than 40 witnesses testified during the trial’s opening days last week, and he questioned none of the witnesses who testified Monday morning.
Many of them have been soldiers wounded in the attack who identified Hasan as the shooter. But Hasan has questioned none of them and many finished testifying in 20 minutes or less.
[…]
Hasan has questioned just two witnesses so far – his former supervisor and a member of the local mosque he last attended the morning of the shooting. He has raised about the same number of brief objections as witnesses described a chaotic, bloody scene the day of the shooting.
The trial has moved rather quickly, so much so that the judge has given jurors time to take notes in between witnesses. That’s a departure from the rocky start last week when Hasan’s standby defense counsel requested to either be reinstated as official counsel or be removed from the case entirely. Hasan has already admitted to the shootings, both in his opening statements and in written documents. His standby counsel maintained that their client was arguing for his own death sentence, but the judge disagreed and ultimately denied the defense team’s request.
You can follow local news coverage of the trial daily via this Twitter list.
Tweets from @Liberty_Chick/nidal-hasan-trial
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Comments
Remember, this was “workplace violence” and not an act of terrorism by someone who admits to wanting to kill non-muslims. Lets end being PC and let justice be done.
Whatever the outcome of the trial the military will continue its leftwing slide, ignoring that they just had a traitor manage to attack an army base in America.
However, they will make sure to continue the crackdown on Christians in uniform.
Why is this trial going on? The jihadist killer has admitted to his jihad slaughters. Let’s move on to the sentencing stage where he meets his end with bacon-rubbed bullets.
Mil courts do not allow a plea, they must have the trial ( or so I have read ). I defer to the legal beagles here to correct me if wrong.
I have sat in on a court martial for a member of my squadron. In his opening remarks, the defendant admitted to wrongdoing, which then led directly to sentencing. Of course that was for buying personal gasoline with a government credit card, not murder (terrorism).
I haven’t been following this trial closely, but from the reports I’ve read, Hasan stood up in his opening statement and admitted that he was the shooter.
So what exactly is the purpose of this trial? Is “I did it for Islam” a recognized justification defense under military law? Can’t the judge just direct a verdict and move on to the penalty phase?
Dear Miss Hairston,
God did hear your plea. Please know you are loved and prayed for as are all those attacked by the evil of islam on that horrid day.
CG
When this attack first happened I was gobsmacked that soldiers were not allowed/required to carry firearms on base. That seems to be just asking for a terrorist attack. When you are fighting an enemy who engages in asymmetrical warfare using unlawful combatants the very first thing you would want to do is make sure all of your servicemen and women are armed at all times.
I felt even worse when I learned this was a relatively new policy implemented under Clinton. His contributions to the war on terror just never seem to end.
“No guns” has been the regulation on military bases for at least 40 years. The people who are allowed/required to carry arms? I doubt they are officially allowed to carry ammo. (That which is allowed is required, that which is not required is forbidden.)
Sort of dumb, but, then again, this dates back to the slave soldier era, erm, make that “Draft era”.
When this is over, I want to hear from/about the guys who gave this clown good OERs. Probably afraid of accusations of islamophobia if they reviewed him honestly, but they can’t say that.
Lots of witnesses and while I appreciate the stress this must cause them, at least if we analyze the evidence carefully we might, just might, be able to figure out the motivation for the act.
I would be interested to know the status of the nurse . I am assuming she is civilian .
If she were military then I would need to reconsider the training US gives to its medical corps.
Whilst no doubt shocking at first -military medical are trained to act under fire. Screaming out to god is pathetic.
Many military medical personnel NEVER see fighting. They are trained to be Doctors and Nurses in a hospital/clinic type environment. On top of that many of them are civilians hired by the military to fill those roles. Besides I have witnessed “qualified” combat personnel freak out as bad as the nurse did when they first experienced combat (on the front lines). About the only people that won’t freak when something like that happens is an experienced combat soldier.
Hasan’s goal is to relive the event publicly. It is a redo in the public mind, a free redo. The goal of terrorists is to create “terror”. I think he is disappointed in how little most people care and go on with their daily lives.
He must be going nuts saying to himself “But is WAS terrorism! An act of Terror! Helloooo, anyone listening?”
Not until another very large building falls down I guess. I think the Heritage organization completed a list of domestic terror acts since 9/11. There are over sixty something- all but one or two linked to Islam.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-continued-lessons-in-domestic-counterterrorism
Yet nobody talks.
This is what we worried about back in my day, low level individual or small group attacks. Almost impossible to stop.
If they got their wish, that it was publicized as terrorism, and the gov’t got out of the way, their world would be real full of “incident” in a big hurry. Most of our ancestors were people who were willing to do something about what they were unhappy about, and some of the attitude has come down to us today.