WASHINGTON — Justice for Fort Hood is finally coming. Speaking at the White House on Friday, October 9, 2026, President Donald J. Trump said the man who carried out the 2009 massacre will pay the ultimate price. “We’re giving a man the death penalty who killed 14 soldiers,” the President said. “Death penalty through firing squad. And he deserves it. Killed and wounded many, many people. A maniac.”

On November 5, 2009, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan walked into the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, Texas, where unarmed troops were lined up for medical checks, screamed “Allahu Akbar” and opened fire. He killed 13 people and wounded 32. Pfc. Francheska Velez, 21, just home from Iraq, was pregnant with her first child; she and her baby were killed. Michael Cahill, a 62-year-old retired chief warrant officer, charged Hasan with a chair and was shot dead. Capt. John Gaffaney and Spc. Frederick Greene rushed him with their bare hands and were gunned down.

Hasan was a jihadist who had corresponded with al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and later admitted he “switched sides.” A military jury convicted him on all 42 counts on August 23, 2013, and sentenced him to death five days later. Then the families waited, for years, while the case dragged through appeals. The Supreme Court denied his final request for review in March 2025.

President Trump ended the wait. The President has sole authority to approve a death sentence for a military prisoner, and on October 2, 2026, he did. Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle then directed that the execution take place by firing squad at Fort Hood at 1 p.m. Central on December 3, 2026, the first U.S. military execution since 1961. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell put it plainly: “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”

For the families of the fallen, and for every soldier who served at Fort Hood, the message from their Commander in Chief is clear: those who murder American troops on American soil will face real justice, carried out on the very ground where they shed innocent blood. Watch the Official White House video.