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By Jennifer Radcliffe
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A Central Texas school district will cancel classes on December 3, the day Nidal Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad at Fort Hood, citing the traffic, media presence and national attention expected in the community.
Killeen ISD, which runs the schools on Fort Hood and serves nearly 40,000 students, announced the closure Thursday. Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 on the post in 2009, the deadliest mass shooting on an American military installation. His execution would be the first by the U.S. military since 1961.
“The district recognizes the lasting impact of the November 5, 2009, tragedy on the community,” Karen Rudolph, Killeen ISD’s executive director for communications, wrote in a statement, “particularly military-connected families.”
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City leaders held a closed-door meeting last month to prepare for an international event that they worry might bring protests, drones and other threats to the city of more than 150,000 just outside the base’s main gate.
“We recognize this event’s significance to our community and nation and understand the associated public safety concerns,” Killeen Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Lopez said in a statement to the Killeen Daily Herald last month.
Police said they are monitoring for credible threats.
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School security consultant Kenneth Trump told Newsweek that the decision to close makes sense.
"This situation presents extraordinary circumstances, making it sensible for schools to take extra precautions due to the logistical and long-term emotional impact the original incident has on that particular school community," he said.
Killeen ISD’s decision has at least one precedent. In 2001, some schools and federal courts in Vigo County in Indiana were closed for the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, citing strained police resources and concerns about bus traffic as more than 1,000 journalists and protesters were expected to descend on the city.
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The Fort Hood Mass Shooting
Founded in 1942, Fort Hood is the largest active-duty armored installation in the United States, with nearly 41,000 soldiers.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and major, was set to deploy to Afghanistan in three weeks when he walked into Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center shortly after 1 p.m. on Nov. 5, 2009, with two guns, shouting “Allahu akbar!” (meaning “God is great”) and opened fire, according to testimony at the trial.
During a 10-minute shooting spree, 13 people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others were injured. Hasan was paralyzed after being shot four times by law enforcement officers during his attack.
What We Know About the Execution
Hasan was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder at his 2013 court-martial. After less than two hours of deliberations, the military jury recommended the death penalty for Hasan. All of his appeals failed.
President Donald Trump approved the firing squad method on the recommendation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hasan is to be shot to death at Fort Hood at 2 p.m. Dec. 3. If carried out, the execution will be the first by the U.S. military in 65 years and the first by an Army firing squad since World War II.
Hegseth initially said in October that Hasan’s execution by military firing squad would be publicly livestreamed.
“It’s going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad,” Hegseth said in an October interview with Jack Posobiec of Real America’s Voice aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. “And we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Trump reversed the decision the following week.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said livestreaming the execution "might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan" but that "many very good and well meaning people" would rather not watch him die. Trump said the immediate families of the victims could view the execution in person if they chose to, adding that they "deserve to witness JUSTICE!"
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