Horrific Fort Hood Shooting Emphazises the Importance of Extensive Criminal Background Searches
Thursday, November 5, 2009 will forever go down in history as the day that the worst mass shooting on a military installation took place. A Major in the U.S. Army shot 30 people, killing one civilian and 12 of his fellow Army soldiers. The question in everyone’s mind is, “Why would someone do something as heinous as this?” Though the answer is not yet obvious to anyone on the investigation, some clues have surfaced that lead police to believe that psychiatric issues are to blame.
The shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was a military psychiatrist who counseled other soldiers for grief issues as well as post-Iraq deployments. His job was to comfort and listen to fellow soldiers so they could get on with leading normal lives as they returned back to the United States. It’s easy to see the incredible irony in this story, especially because Maj. Hasan turned on the very soldiers who trusted him with their deepest fears and grief.
Though the military does do criminal background searches on their enlisted personnel and officers, they did not find anything on Hasan when he initially entered our military system. The need for ongoing psychiatric evaluation of military psychiatrists is a very real need, considering the circumstances surrounding this event. Further, an ongoing criminal background check into each employee on a regular basis is something that more and more companies are utilizing today.
Called, “inifinity screening”, periodic criminal background searches into existing employees’ criminal backgrounds are a regular part of the conditions for employment. This method has already weeded out many sexual predators, violent felons, and the like, who were already employed somewhere but had committed the crimes during their tenure of employment.
As far as Maj. Hasan goes, he is in the hospital in stable condition with gunshot wounds inflicted by the SWAT team who put an end to his rampage. Early on Friday morning, Hasan’s apartment was raided by police to look for clues into what may have motivated this attack and how planned it was, if at all. Some new information was released to the press including:
· Hasan is a 39 year-old graduate of Virginia Tech and a Virginia licensed psychiatrist.
· He is a U.S. born citizen of Jordanian descent.
· Hasan has never been deployed outside of the United States for military service.
· Earlier in the day, just hours before the shooting, Hasan is seen on video surveillance at a nearby 7-Eleven, smiling and friendly with the clerk.
· He was a regular at the convenience store and the clerks knew him well.
· He was seen on the morning of the shooting dressed in traditional Arab clothing.
As more details emerge about this terrible shooting, it is apparent that anyone can snap. As in any workplace attack, employers are responsible for doing a criminal background check and criminal background searches on the people they employ. In this case, though it may not have been preventable, can be a good lesson for every workplace across our nation.
