Posts Tagged ‘Ivan Lopez’

Ft. Hood Shooting Followups

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

A few random followups on the Fort Hood shooting:

  • Three people remain in critical condition.
  • More on Fort Hood shooter Ivan Lopez, who was apparently Puerto Rican, not Mexican American as some sources erroneously asserted.
  • Lopez saw no combat in Iraq.
  • Lopez was evidently on Ambien. There’s long been persistent anecdotal evidence that several spree shooters were on similar drugs (some sources for which are more reliable than others). I’m not a chemist, pharmacist or psychiatrist, so I’m not in a position to evaluate such claims, nor to answer the chicken and egg “were they crazy before or after taking such drugs” question. But maybe it’s time for people who do know to take a closer look at the question.
  • Time to allow soldiers to carry their weapons stateside? (Warning: Autoplay.) I think you know my position…
  • U.S. Congressman Mike McCaul agrees.

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    Another Ft. Hood Shooting

    Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014

    Another active shooter at Fort Hood. One confirmed dead. 14 reportedly injured. (Some reports have the shooter dead of self-inflicted wounds; let’s hope so.) Early reports of two shooters are most likely erroneous (as is fairly common in these situations).

    Now is also a good time to go over Karl Rehn’s advice for what to do when faced with an active shooter.

    Update: Shooter identified as one Ivan Lopez, reportedly a soldier. (And remember folks, there’s probably more than one Ivan Lopez in Texas. Don’t break out the Jump to Conclusions mat just yet…)

    Hearing reports that now have four confirmed dead on Twitter, but haven’t seen media confirmation.

    Update 2: Blithely ignoring my own advice one paragraph up, this would seem to be Ivan Lopez’s Google+ page (“Works at 2-8 CAV/Lives in texas”) and his connected YouTube channel. What little this says about the shooter could be measured in a very small thimble.

    Update 3:

    Update 4: Four now confirmed dead, including the shooter.

    Update 5: 11 wounded, two in “extremely grave” condition.

    Update 6: Lopez evidently served four months in Iraq in 2011. “They said the gunman was taking medication and seeking help for depression and anxiety and was undergoing a diagnosis process for PTSD but hadn’t yet been diagnosed.”

    I’m far from an expert, but if it’s been two plus years since Lopez saw combat, I would think that would be ample time to make a PTSD determination or not.

    Update 7: “I don’t endorse carrying concealed weapons on base,” [Lt. Gen. Mark] Milley told reporters. “We have military police officers on base.”

    You know, general, I think we now have enough data points to conclusively prove that that policy isn’t working.

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