Four people were killed on Wednesday in a shooting at a US Army base in Texas, including the suspected shooter, a soldier seeking treatment for psychological complaints, officials said.
Sixteen were injured, including three in critical condition.
The gunman opened fire on the base around 4 pm (2100 GMT) before climbing into a vehicle and firing several shots as he drove to another part of the base, where he left the vehicle before being engaged by security forces.
“The shooter is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot,” Lieutenant General Mark Milley, commanding general of the base’s III Corps, told reporters.
The suspect had reported suffering “depression, anxiety and a variety of other” complaints after being stationed in Iraq for four months in 2011, Milley said.
“He was currently under diagnosis for PTSD but had not yet been diagnosed.” The weapon was not military issue, he said.
The suspect “was using a .45 Smith and Wesson semi-automatic pistol that was purchased recently in the area.” Local and federal authorities were investigating the shooter’s background, but “so far have not found that this individual has any connections to terrorism,” Milley told a press conference.
Seven men and one women were admitted to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, with injuries from the incident.
Three were in critical condition and the remaining in serious condition, a hospital official told reporters. A ninth person was on their way, he said.
The wounded had suffered a variety of injuries to the neck, chest and abdomen, a doctor from the hospital told a press conference.
In 2009, 13 people were shot dead and dozens were injured in another shooting at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist.
Hassan was sentenced to death by a military jury in August.
President Barack Obama said he was “heartbroken.” “Obviously this reopened the pain of what happened at Fort Hood five years ago,” he said, speaking in Chicago.
The base was still on lockdown, Milley said.