The Army says seven people were killed and 20 wounded in a pair of shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Killeen, according to the Associated Press.
An Army spokesman at the Pentagon says the shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Fort Hood, the AP said.
The spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Banks, says two shooters were apparently involved. There is no word yet on who they were, nor on identities of the dead, according to the AP.
Banks says the second incident took place at a theater on the sprawling base, the AP said.
He says it is too soon to tell whether there is any link to battle stress or repeated deployments. The Army is suffering a record high suicide rate and other signs of stress from fighting two wars, the AP said.
Greg Schannep, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Carter, told Statesman.com he was on the Army post to attend a graduation service. He said that as he neared the entrance of a building where the service was being held, a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.
Schannep said the shootings appeared to have occurred in a complex near a theater where the service was scheduled. He was with the injured soldier, who he said appeared to have been struck in the shoulder but did not have life-threatening injuries.
At 2:18 p.m., all workers at Fort Hood received this email alert from the post headquarters:
“Fort Hood is locked down. Units are advised to do 100 percent accountability. This is not a drill.”
Todd Martin, assistant for communications at the Killeen school district, said the district has seven elementary schools and two middle schools on the post itself.
“Those have been locked down since this began,” Martin said. The other schools in the district outside the post have not been locked down, he said.
The district serves Killeen, Fort Hood, Harker Heights and Nolanville.
The elementary campuses, which typically releases between 2:45 and 3:15 p.m. had a two-hour early release day scheduled for today, so some students already had gone home. District administrators did not know how many of the students from the elementary schools were still on campus.
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