There have now been 4 people confirmed dead after the second shooting at Fort Hood in five years.
Pentagon sources tell CBS News that the Fort Hood shooter is a soldier — identified as 34-year-old Ivan Lopez — and that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. CBS News reports that the shooting stemmed from a soldier dispute.
According to Fox News 14 people were wounded with injuries ranging from stable to very critical.
The shooting reportedly started between 4:25 and 4:30 central time and for several hours Fort Hood was in lockdown, and the nation didn’t know the number of shooters or whether or the shooter(s) were terrorists.
While all this was unfolding, Obama was in Chicago for a pair of fund raisers.
Air Force One touched down at O’Hare Airport at 4:00 pm and the president was whisked off to his first scheduled stop at the Chicago Cut Steakhouse, where he attended a private roundtable discussion for the DNC. Reportedly 25 supporters paid up to $32,400 to attend that event.
Then he was off to a private residence in Lincoln Park where he attended a dinner reception where 55 supporters paid up to $10,000 to meet the president.
Obama was expected to leave Chicago for Washington DC at around 8:30 p.m.
He interrupted his event at the Chicago Cut Steakhouse to make a brief statement about the ongoing shooting incident.
“I want to just assure all of us we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened,” Obama said.
Obama continued: “The folks there have sacrificed so much on behalf of our freedom. Many of the people there have been on multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. They serve with valor, they serve with distinction and when they’re at their home base, they need to feel safe. We don’t yet know what happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken once again.”