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FORT HOOD, Texas Military and federal officials investigating Thursday's mass shooting at this sprawling Army post spent the weekend poring over evidence they seized from the apartment of the alleged shooter, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, including his computer and multiple e-mail accounts he may have controlled, according to a law enforcement source.
Investigators have interviewed more than 120 witnesses and plan to question dozens more as they try to piece together what might have motivated Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, to gun down 12 soldiers and one civilian, Army officials said.
Authorities have tentatively concluded that the attack was not part of a terrorist plot. Rather, they have come to believe that Hasan acted out under a welter of emotional, ideological and religious pressures, according to interviews with federal officials who have been briefed on the inquiry.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Hasan believed he was carrying out an extremist's suicide mission.
He was sitting with hundreds of other soldiers, filling out paperwork in a cubicle, when he suddenly stood up and opened fire, said Army officials. More than a dozen of those who were killed and wounded Thursday were soldiers who were close to deploying with him and would have served alongside him in Afghanistan as mental health professionals.
Fewer than half of those injured Thursday remained hospitalized. Two victims were in the surgical critical unit.
An Army spokesman said Saturday that Hasan had been taken off a ventilator but still remained in intensive care at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Spokesman Col. John Rossi said he was not sure if Hasan was able to communicate.
Investigators have so far released no information that would link the case to a terrorist group. Texas Gov. Rick Perry told reporters at a news conference Saturday that the shooting was an isolated incident, and President Barack Obama, after being briefed by FBI Director Robert Mueller, cautioned that the public should not rush to judgment about the case.
As investigators fanned out Saturday to interview members of the Muslim community living in the neighborhood around the Islamic Center of Greater Killeen, Hasan's family described a man incapable of the attack, calling him a devoted doctor and devout Muslim who showed no signs that he might lash out with violence.
"I've known my brother Nidal to be a peaceful, loving and compassionate person who has shown great interest in the medical field and in helping others," his brother, Eyad Hasan, of Sterling, Va., said in a statement. "He has never committed an act of violence and was always known to be a good, law-abiding citizen." The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed.
