Battalion Commander Killed at Fort Bragg
Multiple reports on this today, but complete details are not yet available.
Apparently a Battalion Commander at Fort Bragg, NC, was shot and killed yesterday by another soldier during a safety briefing. (Other reports indicated that the unit involved was the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Battalion Brigade and that all injured and killed were from that unit.) The gunman reportedly broke ranks, pulled a handgun, and fired, killing the Battalion Commander. The gunman then shot himself, but survived and is in custody in “serious” condition. A third soldier was injured. The incident is currently under investigation by CID. Names of the injured and killed do not appear to have been publicly released.
Condolences to the surviving family.
Category: Breaking News, Military issues
Holy Shizz-nit.
Someone needs to tell IVAW to stay the hell away from Fort Bragg.
Man, what the heck is going on?!
Soooooo. . .I’ll be the first here to be a racist asshole. I notice no mention of the shooter’s name or other personal info. Was he a muzzie?? Anyone want to bet me a cold one in it?
Matty O’ Blackfive put this up yesterday afternoon on fb and I was just in shock. Prayers to the families of the wounded and especially the fallen. As I told Matt; this makes me ill.
What a damned shame.
Ft Bragg…..
The 525 has had alot of criminal problems the past few years. My SLC class had the current (at the time) BDE CDR as a guest speaker at Huachuca. He showed up late and smelling of booze, and spent more time talking about the leadership challenges (prostitution and drug rings run out of his barracks) then he did about MI.
Workplace violence?
Dear God…….
My prayers go out to this man’s family.
Need more infro? Prayers out for the families involved.
Happened during a safety briefing (4-day this weekend)…and 2 blocks from my office. I’m not going to get into details until the investigation is complete, but if I recall, the 525th is either about to deploy or just returned from the box.
He just did what everyone else wants to do during safety briefs
Some additional information seems to be coming out now – according to MSNBC the soldier who opened fire on his commander was up for a court martial and is not expected to survive the shot to the head he received in the struggle when other soldiers in the briefing rushed him:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/29/12479855-alleged-fort-bragg-shooter-faced-court-martial-discharge-officials-say?lite
A specialist at 8 years? Sounds like there were issues with this troop prior to this incident.
Damn. I wondered if it might have been someone who’d received a Field Grade w/extra duty, couldn’t go anywhere over the weekend, and snapped.
Something like this is thankfully pretty rare, but I can’t say it completely shocks me. Many years ago at Bragg, we had a guy come in to my Bn’s barracks and “dry fire” a pistol at one of the other soldiers. The guy ended up doing time.
@16… don’t forget about the nut with the AR-15 at Towle Field during mornng PT. A few SF guys (unarmed) jumped him and disarmed him. This was in the mid-ninties. Killed one… wounded 18 others. Death penalty was overturned.
Prayers to all.
Ne Desit Virtus Says:
June 29th, 2012 at 10:20 am
He just did what everyone else wants to do during safety briefs
Not even close to funny. You are over the line.
Some people are just cold hearted dicks-no morals-none:
A few years ago, Retired Master Sgt. Janet McWilliams, serving as 1st Sgt of 342nd Training Squadron at Lackland AFB lost left hand & part of right hand from package bomb left on her desk. Couple of years ago she became first female in U.S. to receive successful hand transplant & 1st in DOD. At least this disgrace at Bragg had “tiny” amount of balls to face his commander – not do a dump and dash.
Does it seem to anyone else that there have been a surprising number of strange occurrances involving intel and intel units lately?
Just plain sad.
@21 OWB — yes, you could make a long list of them.
This is awful. No safe place left any more, and the innocent suffer for it.
I am still curious as to the religious denomination of the shooter. Not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, or a racist, or a , but I have the strongest feeling that he might pray a few too many times a day at a set interval… if you know what I mean.
@17: I remember that happening. I didn’t know that his date with the gallows was overturned, though. Asshole should have gotten the needle; still should.
@24: I think it was a shitbird that was pissed about getting court martialed. I don’t think religion played a factor. I could be wrong, but my first instinct tells me he was just a loser.
@24, I don’t think it’s racist to think the shooter could have ties to Islam. Recent shootings and attempted acts of violence w/in the ranks were because of this.
I think this was just a case of a pissed off shitbag specialist who got caught stealing a $1700.00 toolbox and was about to meet a forced ETS date.
Yeah. Also, a terrorist presumably would’ve taken out as many as he could before being subdued, rather than simply shooting the BC and then trying to off himself.
Ne Desit Virtus- Take that childish bullshit somewhere else. Assuming you served, you are exactly the kind of “know it all”, “wont happen to me” type shitbird that these briefings try to reach. Congratulations asshole, you’re in the 10% of soldiers that commanders spend 90% of their time dealing with.
I just have a question. If this guy was facing a court-martial as the last news report said, what was he doing with a gun, and why was he not in the brig?
Only asking.
Report suggests that it was a larceny charge. If thats true, the charges alone would not have been sufficient for pre-trial confinement.
Thank you, Squid.
Now that having been said, I would love to know whether this person was on some sort of restriction, was he living in the barracks, was the weapon registered, etc. I’ve seen too many situations in which people on restriction in the barracks had weapons that they should not have had, particularly on restriction. Commands often do not ask if people have pistol permits or personally owned weapons and they miss opportunities to compel the member to have those weapons placed in the armory or at the very least ensure that they are secured. Of course, people can always still lie but often times, the command doesn’t bother to ask. In the death briefs I’ve attended, more often than not someone in the family or command knew that they had personally owned firearms and had bad voo joo about something happening in the days to weeks prior to the event.
Found this press release from the change of command on 30 Sep 2011:
http://www.army.mil/article/66513/525th_Battlefield_Surveillance_Brigade_welcomes_new_commander/
@30: Unless he’s a flight risk or the unit has reason to believe that the Soldier will commit further misconduct, they can’t leave a Soldier in the brig without a hearing.
In order to put a soldier pending a court martial into pretrial confinement, a commander and magistrate must confirm in writing that there is probable cause to believe that the servicemember committed an offense triable by courts-martial;
•there is probable cause to believe that confinement is necessary to prevent the servicemember from fleeing or engaging in serious criminal misconduct;
•and there is probable cause to believe that lesser forms of restraint would be inadequate.
The “magistrate review” must find, in writing:
•that there is probable cause to believe that the servicemember committed an offense triable by courts-martial;
•based on the preponderance of the evidence (51%), there is reason to believe that confinement is necessary to prevent the servicemember from fleeing or engaging in serious criminal misconduct;
•based on the preponderance of the evidence (51%), there is reason to believe that lesser forms of restraint would be inadequate.
And the Soldier was up for a special court-martial, usually pre-trial confinement isn’t even considered, since that’s for what would usually be considered a ‘misdemeanor’ offense in the civilian world.
To be honest, if I had a Soldier up for a special court martial for just stealing a $1700 toolbox, I wouldn’t even consider asking about pretrial confinement.
It was the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade Support Battalion. LTC Roy L. Tisdale was the victim. See here: http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2012/06/29/1187706?sac=fo.home
He’s mentioned in the article posted @34 by Doc R.
Also, this is something from then Major Tisdale: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA485488
Looks like Aggie Muster in Raleigh next year will hit even closer to home. LTC Tisdale was class of 1992.