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BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
Fort Stewart shooting: Soldiers who tackled Georgia gunman hailed for 'heroism'
Unarmed soldiers who tackled and subdued a gunman at a military base in Georgia on Wednesday have been hailed for their "heroism" and preventing General John Lubas said US Army personnel "immediately raced [towards] and attacked" the suspect when they heard gunfire, while US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said they "ran into battle" to prevent further injuries and administer first people were injured when suspect Quornelius Radford, a 28-year-old US Army sergeant, allegedly opened fire at the Fort Stewart base. All the victims are expected to suspect is in custody and officials said they would not speculate on a motive while an investigation was ongoing. The suspect's father told US media the soldier sent a cryptic text message to a family member on the morning of the shooting. Eddie Radford told the New York Times that his son sent a message to his aunt saying "that he loved everybody, and that he will be in a better place because he was about to do something".Mr Radford, who did not see the text message himself, said he had not noticed anything unusual about his son's behaviour prior to the shooting. "It's hard for me to process," he also told the New York Times his son had sought a transfer from Fort Stewart and had complained about alleged racism on the base. BBC News has asked the Department of Defense to respond to the Thursday, six soldiers were honoured with a service medal for their role in stopping the gunman. "Under duress and fire, they ran into battle to the sound of the gunfire, took down the assailant, and then took care of their comrades, and that made all the difference," said US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll."The heroism shown under fire is something that we should all aspire to know."The gunman opened fire at around 11:00 local time on Wednesday at a sprawling military base located around 240 miles (386km) south-east of the state's capital, Atlanta. Soldiers ran to subdue the gunman and wrestled his gun away, Gen Lubas said, who described how one, a non-commissioned officer, jumped on top of the suspect and restrained him before police other soldiers provided medical care to the victims "with no hesitation" and helped stop the bleeding before paramedics arrived on the scene. Staff Sgt Melissa Taylor, one of the six that were awarded a medal, told reporters that she was in her office when she heard a fellow soldier yell that "a gunshot went off", and saw smoke in the hall."I noticed there was a soldier laying on the ground, so I immediately sprinted over to the soldier and started rendering aid," she Secretary Driscoll said "they were unarmed and ran at and tackled an armed person who they knew was actively shooting their buddies, their colleagues, their fellow soldiers".Three of the five wounded soldiers have been released from hospital, while two continue to receive treatment. None have been publicly the two who were more seriously inured, Gen Lubas said one was "doing very well, in high spirits", while the other had "a little bit longer road to recovery".Suspect Sgt Radford was part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team and has not previously been deployed to a combat zone, officials have previously said he is in pre-trial confinement and will likely be transferred to a military detention US Army also said he had previously been arrested for driving under the influence, a fact now known to the military prior to the Army Criminal Investigation Division is leading the investigation alongside the FBI.
CBC
4 days ago
- CBC
Fort Stewart military shooting is the latest on-base attack, with many deadly
Social Sharing This latest act of violence on a U.S. military installation — sites that are supposed to be among the most secure in the country — again raised concerns about safety and security within the armed forces' own walls. The army said it's investigating the mass shooting that took place Wednesday at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. There were still many unanswered questions, including the scope of injuries and the shooter's motive. Officials said the shooter was Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, who used a personal handgun, not a military firearm, to injure five people. The injured soldiers are stable and expected to recover, said the base's commander, Brig-Gen. John Lubas. The injured were taken to the hospital and three underwent surgery, officials said. Radford, who enlisted in 2018, was tackled by soldiers. "These soldiers, without a doubt, prevented further casualties or wounded," Lubas said. Located about 65 kilometres southwest of Savannah, Ga., Fort Stewart is the largest army post east of the Mississippi River by land area. It's home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the U.S. army's 3rd Infantry Division and family members. Just over two years ago, the installation experienced a fatal shooting; Fort Stewart officials said a specialist used a privately owned gun to kill Sgt. Nathan Hillman. Shay Wilson, the accused, has yet to face trial in that incident and a motive has not been specified. Both soldiers served in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division. Restrictions on storing weapons The two incidents highlight the fact that shootings and insider threats at U.S. military installations around the country can range from isolated events between service members motivated by personal or unknown reasons, to mass-casualty events, some of which have been assigned terroristic motives. While deadly shootings at U.S. military installations aren't a new phenomenon, they appear to be occurring more frequently. A CNN report in the wake of two deadly incidents days apart in 2019 documented 20 shootings on U.S. military bases since 1993. U.S. Department of Defence policy prohibits military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, and there is a strict protocol for how the firearm must be stored. "You don't forfeit all of your rights when you enter the military," said Eric Carpenter, a former military prosecutor and defence counsel. "Outside of a military situation, the service member has just as much Second Amendment right as anyone else." As well, as with society at large, confiscating someone's gun because they've experienced a mental health issue can be legally problematic and complex. Fort Hood site of 2 deadly mass shootings Fort Hood, in Texas, has seen two fatal shooting incidents in the past 16 years, including a 2009 attack that's among the deadliest acts of violence on U.S. military bases. Maj. Nidal Hasan — a U.S. army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a shooting that left more than 30 wounded — said at a military trial he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression. Hasan, paralyzed from the waist down as a result of return fire in the incident, was sentenced to death. That's rare for a military proceeding, with the last execution of an American soldier occurring in 1961. In contrast to the clear motives expressed by Hasan, the fatal shooting perpetrated at Fort Hood five years later by Specialist Ivan Lopez was more of a mystery. Lopez turned a privately purchased gun on himself after killing three and injuring over a dozen. An army report months later found no indication in his personnel or medical records that Lopez was a threat to others. No "single event or stressor, in isolation, was the cause of the shooting," the report stated, though his family members said he suffered from depression and was affected by a head injury suffered while serving in Iraq. After the Hasan shooting, the next-deadliest incident occurred in 2013, when a defence contract worker and former Navy reservist killed 12 people at Washington Navy Yard in D.C. Aaron Alexis, 34, was then killed in a gun battle with police. Faults were later found in the background check process, as Alexis received and maintained a security clearance after a 2004 incident when he shot a neighbour's car, and he had two additional arrests and mental health issues that had been reported to the navy. In the wake of that shooting, then-defence secretary Ashton Carter ordered a review of security at Department of Defence installations. Some other recent deadly incidents at U.S. bases include the following: In July 2015, four marines and a sailor were killed by Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. The 24-year-old first opened fire at a recruiting centre in Chattanooga, Tenn., before driving several kilometres away to a joint marine-navy reserve centre, where he shot and killed the marines and wounded the sailor, who later died. Abdulazeez, later described by the FBI as having consumed al-Qaeda materials and being radicalized online, was shot to death by police. In April 2016, an airman fatally shot his commander before shooting himself at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas. Military investigators said Tech Sgt. Steven Bellino, 41, confronted Lt.-Col. William Schroeder in an office before the two struggled, and Schroeder was shot multiple times. The men, both veterans of the U.S. Special Operations Command, were in the air force's elite Battlefield Airmen program. On Dec. 4, 2019, a U.S. sailor used his service rifle to shoot three civilian shipyard workers at the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before killing himself with his service pistol. Gabriel Antonio Romero, 22, of San Antonio, Texas, was said to be unhappy with his commanders and was undergoing counselling, although a motive for the shooting was not determined. On Dec. 6, 2019, a Saudi air force officer who was training at a navy base in Pensacola, Fla., killed three U.S. sailors and wounded eight other people in a shooting that U.S. officials described as an act of terrorism. The country's top federal law enforcement officials said the gunman, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, had been in touch with al-Qaeda operatives about planning and tactics. Alshamrani was killed by a sheriff's deputy. In June 2020, a woman and a man, both airmen first class (A1C), were killed in a shooting at the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Julian Torres, 20, shot and killed Natasha Aposhian, 21, and then himself. The pair had briefly been in a romantic relationship, according to reports. A woman who purchased the gun for Torres was sentenced to just over three months in prison and given a bad conduct discharge from the air force.
Los Angeles Times
4 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Ft. Stewart army base shooting raises questions about military gun policies
A shooting that injured five soldiers at one of the country's largest military bases on Wednesday has resurfaced questions about a long-standing army policy that largely prevents service members from carrying personal weapons on military installations. Soldiers in the area who witnessed the shooting at Ft. Stewart in Georgia 'immediately and without hesitation' tackled the shooter to subdue him before law enforcement arrived, Brigadier Gen. John Lubas said at a news conference Wednesday. But they didn't have firearms to shoot back because of a policy first enacted decades ago to ensure safety by limiting armed members on army bases to military police. The suspect in the shooting, logistics Sgt. Quornelius Radford, used a personal weapon, Lubas said. Questions about why soldiers didn't have weapons were buzzing online after at least one video of the incident on social media appears to show service members in uniform running to safety amid a lockdown that lasted about an hour, instead of firing back at the shooter. While some have questioned why many service members in the area during the shooting didn't use weapons to defend themselves, others have questioned whether existing regulations do enough to prevent shootings on bases. The shooting is the latest in a growing list of violent incidents at American military installations over the years — some claiming upward of a dozen lives. Experts say that there are reasons for long-standing regulations on military bases, despite their limitations. Department of Defense policy prohibits military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, and there is a strict protocol for how the firearm must be stored. Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, and then check all firearms back in promptly after its sanctioned use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas or in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition. The federal policy leaves little room for local commanders to use discretion about how the policy is enforced. That means the regulation applies even in Georgia, a state with some of the most lax gun regulations in the country, where Ft. Stewart is located. Robert Capovilla, a founding partner for one of the largest military law firms in the country, strongly believes in the Second Amendment. But he said that the strict firearm policies on military bases exist for a reason. 'A lot of these installations are involved in top-secret operations, dealing with top-secret information, and because of that you need a heightened security,' said Capovilla, a former military prosecutor and defense attorney. 'You simply don't want folks walking around a federal installation with personal weapons.' He said he has traveled to 'nearly every single major military installation' in North America for his work. Whenever he visits an installation, he said armed military police have a visible presence almost constantly on base. He added that he doesn't believe Wednesday's shooting could have been prevented if military personnel had been armed at the time. Firearms on military bases are more regulated than most states in some ways, according to former military prosecutor and defense counsel Eric Carpenter. But he said that the limitations on gun control on military bases parallel gun policy debates in the public more broadly. 'You don't forfeit all of your rights when you enter the military,' Carpenter said. 'Outside of a military situation, the service member has just as much Second Amendment right as anyone else.' For example, it could be fairly straightforward for a service member living off-base to bring a weapon onto the military installation, Carpenter said, because a senior commander can't regulate gun ownership off base. There is also scant legal ground for leadership to confiscate a gun when a service member is exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis or post-traumatic stress disorder, potentially posing a threat to themselves or others. In recent years, those gaps have come under more scrutiny because of mass shootings, he said. 'All those rules aren't going to prevent someone from doing what the guy did today,' Carpenter said. Riddle writes for the Associated Press.
CTV News
4 days ago
- CTV News
Soldiers hailed as heroes for tackling armed assailant at Georgia Army base
Sgt. Quornelius Radford, a suspect in the shooting of five soldiers at Fort Stewart, is escorted by military police into a booking room at the Liberty County Jail in Hinesville, Ga., Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine) FORT STEWART, Ga. — A half-dozen soldiers at a Georgia Army base are being hailed as heroes for tackling an armed assailant accused of shooting five people and then giving aid to their wounded colleagues. Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, is accused of using a personal handgun to shoot five soldiers Wednesday at Fort Stewart, one of the nation's largest Army bases, before he was quickly tackled by other troops, officials said. 'The fast action of these soldiers under stress and under trauma and under fire absolutely saved lives from being lost,' Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said at a news briefing Thursday morning. 'One of the soldiers tackled the person, so just think about this — they were unarmed and ran at and tackled an armed person who they knew was actively shooting their buddies, their colleagues, their fellow soldiers,' Driscoll said. 'Another soldier jumped on top of the person to subdue them until federal law enforcement was able to arrive.' Authorities say Radford opened fire on a part of the base where he worked, but officials would not speculate about a motive. The injured were taken to the hospital and three underwent surgery, officials said. The injured soldiers are stable and expected to recover, said Brig Gen. John Lubas. The soldiers who tackled Radford helped ensure his arrest, said Lubas, who commands the 3rd Infantry Division. This latest act of violence on a U.S. military installation — sites that are supposed to be among the most secure in the country — again raised concerns about safety and security within the armed forces' own walls. There were still many unanswered questions about the shooting. Army records released to The Associated Press show Radford enlisted in January 2018. He worked as a supply sergeant and has not been deployed. Radford faced an Aug. 20 hearing in Hinesville, a small town near the base, on accusations of driving under the influence and running a red light just after 1 a.m. on May 18, according to a citation and court filing. He was given a blood test and freed on a $1,818 bond, the documents said. A telephone number listed for Radford in public records rang unanswered. Attorney Sneh Patel is representing Radford in the traffic case but not the shooting as of Wednesday, he said in an email. He cited attorney-client privilege in declining to comment about any his conversations with Radford. Law enforcement was sent to the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team complex shortly before 11 a.m. The suspect was arrested at 11:35 a.m., officials said. A lockdown lasted about an hour. After it was lifted, cars began to move through the normal security checkpoint at the fort's main gate. The Army's 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team was created in 2016 when the service added more than 200 vehicles to an infantry unit of roughly 4,200 soldiers. Also known as the 'Spartan Brigade,' the Army has called the unit its 'most modern land fighting force.' Located about 40 miles (64 kilometres) southwest of Savannah, Fort Stewart is the largest Army post east of the Mississippi River by land area. It's home to thousands of soldiers assigned to the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and family members. President Donald Trump called the shooter a 'horrible person' in comments to reporters at the White House. The FBI was at the fort to help investigate, said Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Among the deadliest acts of violence on U.S. military bases was a 2009 attack. A U.S. Army psychiatrist killed 13 people in a shooting that left more than 30 wounded at Fort Hood, a military installation in Texas. In 2013, a defense contract worker and former Navy reservist killed 12 people at Washington Navy Yard. He was then killed in a gun battle with police. In 2014, a soldier opened fire on his fellow service members at Fort Hood, killing three people and wounding more than a dozen others before the gunman killed himself. In 2019, an aviation student opened fire in a classroom at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, killing three people and injuring another dozen people including two sheriff's deputies. Just days earlier, a U.S. Navy sailor shot two people to death before killing himself at Pearl Harbor, the Naval station in Hawaii. ___ Russ Bynum And Jeff Martin, The Associated Press Martin reported from Atlanta.
Reuters
4 days ago
- Reuters
All injured soldiers in US base shooting expected to fully recover, Army says
Aug 7 (Reuters) - Three of the five U.S. soldiers wounded in a military base shooting have been released from hospital and all are expected to make a full recovery, the U.S. Army said on Thursday, praising the fast actions by fellow soldiers to subdue the shooter and treat the injured. Brigadier General John Lubas, who commands Fort Stewart where the shooting took place on Wednesday, said one of the injured soldiers had a "little bit longer road to recovery," but doctors expected her to fully recover.
