Pentagon officials said Thursday that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, will be executed in public, a practice that ended in the United States nearly a century ago and is most commonly carried out in countries such as Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The Pentagon said the military execution, scheduled for Dec. 3, will also be broadcast via livestream. Such broadcasts have little precedent, and video of executions is most often associated with extremist groups like the Islamic State.
Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others when he brought a personal handgun onto the grounds of Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009. The rampage was the deadliest shooting at an American military base. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Real America's Voice, a conservative outlet, that the execution would be public and available to watch "because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."
The Army has said the execution will be carried out by firing squad at Fort Hood, the site of the shooting. If carried out, it would be a first in modern American history. The last state-sanctioned public execution in the United States occurred more than 90 years ago, in Owensboro, Kentucky, when some 20,000 people gathered to witness the 1936 hanging of Rainey Bethea. Hasan's execution would be the first by the military justice system since 1961, and the first firing squad execution of a soldier since World War II.
Hegseth said the firing squad, the timing and other details were chosen for their symbolism, noting the execution would take place on a Thursday at 1 o'clock, the time of the attack. Hasan was convicted in 2013 of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. He is held at the military death row prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and has expressed no remorse for his actions.
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