Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army major accused of killing 13 and injuring 32 more in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas on Nov. 5, 2009, has been receiving salary payments totaling $278,000 in the three-and-a-half years since being arrested, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported Tuesday.A spokesperson for the Department of Defense confirmed its continued payments to Hasan, according to NBC, and said the department can't suspend his salary until he has been proven guilty.
The news has added fuel to the controversy over the Defense Department's classification of the event as "workplace violence" instead of a "terrorist attack," a distinction that keeps victims of the shooting from receiving certain benefits afforded to those who suffer "combat-related" injuries.
Retired Army Spc. Logan Burnett, a reservist who was shot three times in the Fort Hood attack, expressed outrage when told by NBC that Hasan was receiving a full salary. According to Burnett, he and his wife have struggled since the shooting, in part because his benefits package has been limited.
Lawmakers have repeatedly pushed the Defense Department to change the designation of the shooting. Earlier this month, a trio of congressmen applied the latest round of pressure, Stars and Stripes reported:
In a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this week, the trio of House members -- Tom Rooney, R-Fla.; Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.; and Frank Wolf, R-Va. -- say the decision in the days following the attack to treat it as a workplace violence incident rather than a terrorist incident "has since resulted in an embarrassing lack of care and treatment by our military for the victims and their families."They want the tragedy formally classified as a combat-related attack, which would make the victims and their families eligible for additional payouts and the Purple Heart. Survivors of the attack have said they could see up to $800 more a month in disability pay if the attack was considered a combat injury...
Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood Shooting Suspect, Has Received $278,000 In Salary Since Arrest
This tops my list of the ten most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.
You?
I don't understand why victims of "workplace violence" are any less untitled to certain benefits than "terrorist attacks." The distinction is largely artificial in my opinion. Getting shot up by a co-worker vs. getting shot up by a crazy Muslim doesn't make you any less shot up. Just my 2 cents.
I don't understand why victims of "workplace violence" are any less untitled to certain benefits than "terrorist attacks." The distinction is largely artificial in my opinion. Getting shot up by a co-worker vs. getting shot up by a crazy Muslim doesn't make you any less shot up. Just my 2 cents.
This makes sense in any other situation - but in the military being put in such harm IS the job. They accept the risk at home or awya - the false conception is that they're SAFE at home. . .never been true.
Seriously, where is the logic in not declaring this terrorism? Why should there be any reluctance at all beyond BS PC reasons?
Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood Shooting Suspect, Has Received $278,000 In Salary Since Arrest
This tops my list of the ten most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.
You?
Seriously, where is the logic in not declaring this terrorism? Why should there be any reluctance at all beyond BS PC reasons?
They should have him executed and seize all of his money and assets.
This is just completely stupid.
Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood Shooting Suspect, Has Received $278,000 In Salary Since Arrest
This tops my list of the ten most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.
You?
How is the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, the cornerstone of the American criminal justice system, sickening?
I agree. I hear they've been fighting over whether he gets to wear a beard. I say they forcibly shave him with a straight edged razor and just hope that ****er doesn't slip or something.
Do gun massacres normally fall under the helm of terrorism?
Days after the shooting, reports in the media revealed that a Joint Terrorism Task Force had been aware of e-mail communications between Hasan and the Yemen-based cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been monitored by the NSA as a security threat, and that Hasan's colleagues had been aware of his increasing radicalization for several years. The failure to prevent the shootings led the Defense Department and the FBI to commission investigations, and Congress also held hearings...
At approximately 1:34 p.m. local time, Hasan entered his workplace, the Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where personnel receive routine medical treatment immediately prior to and on return from deployment. He was armed with the FN Five-seven pistol, which he had fitted with two Lasermax laser sights: one red, and one green. A Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver (an older model) was later found on Hasan's person, but he did not use it to shoot any of the victims.
According to eyewitnesses, Hasan had taken a seat at an empty table and bowed his head for several seconds when he suddenly stood up, shouted "Allahu Akbar!" and opened fire. Witnesses said Hasan initially "sprayed bullets at soldiers in a fanlike motion" before taking aim at individual soldiers. Eyewitness Sgt. Michael Davis said: "The rate of fire was pretty much constant shooting. When I initially heard it, it sounded like an M16."
How is the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, the cornerstone of the American criminal justice system, sickening?
How is the principle that to get paid you need to be doing your job which you are not doing while sitting in a jail cell not sickening?
Since they captured him at the scene and there were plenty of eye witnesses, there's no question of his guilt.
I do take some small satisfaction that when he was shot it paralyzed him from the waist down. Perhaps, though, that'll mean he gets disability pay after they find him legally insane. Hard to say.
Your vindictiveness notwithstanding, the fact remains that he hasn't been adjudicated guilty yet.
Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood Shooting Suspect, Has Received $278,000 In Salary Since Arrest
This tops my list of the ten most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life.
You?
Anyone with a lick of common sense knows this was a terrorist attack. A well planned and thought out attack. I think the letters should be addressed to the president, I am sure if President Obama told Hagel to change it from work place violence to a terrorist attack, he would be the good little soldier and say, "Yes Sir!"
The original decision to call this a work place violence episode was a very dumb decision in the first place. It makes this administration look like they do not want call call anything a terrorist attack as some how that would upset the equilibrium of the world.
Lack of common sense notwithstanding either, apparently.
How is the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty, the cornerstone of the American criminal justice system, sickening?
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