Army: 12 dead, 31 hurt in Texas base attack

"There was a burst of shots and more bursts of shots and people running everywhere," said Schannep, who works for local Congressman John Carter.

The uniformed man who had warned him ran to the theater. Schannep said he could see the man's back was bloodied from a wound. The man survived, was treated and will be fine, Schannep said.

Cone said initially three people were held, and all have been interviewed. Authorities believe, however, that there was a single shooter.

In Washington, a senior U.S. official said authorities at Fort Hood initially thought one of the slain victims was the shooter, a mistake that resulted in a delay of several hours in identifying Hasan as the suspect. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that were under investigation.

The Soldier Readiness Center holds hundreds of people and is one of the most populated parts of the base, said Steve Moore, a spokesman for III Corps at Fort Hood. Nearby there are barracks and a food center where there are fast food chains.

The wounded were dispersed among hospitals in central Texas, Cone said. Their identities, and the identities of the dead, were not immediately released.

Amber Bahr, 19, was shot in the stomach but was in stable condition, said her mother, Lisa Pfund of Wisconsin.

"We know nothing, just that she was shot in the belly," Pfund told The Associated Press. She couldn't provide more details and only spoke with emergency personnel.

Hasan, whose family said he was born in suburban Washington, is single with no children. He graduated from Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps and earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1997. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2001 and was at Walter Reed for six years for his internship, residency and a fellowship.

"We are shocked and saddened by the terrible events at Fort Hood today," his cousin, Nadar Hasan, said in a statement issued on behalf of their family. "We send the families of the victims our most heartfelt sympathies."

The attack happened just down the road from one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. On Oct. 16, 1991, George Hennard smashed his pickup truck through a Luby's Cafeteria window in Killeen, Texas, and fired on the lunchtime crowd with a high-powered pistol, killing 22 people and wounding at least 20 others.

No other shooting at a military base in the U.S. has been anywhere near as deadly as Thursday's. In 1993, a gunman at Fort Knox shot five civilian co-workers, killing three, and then fatally shot himself.

Around the country, some bases stepped up security precautions, but no others were locked down.

Covering 339 square miles (878 sq. kilometers), Fort Hood is the largest active duty armored post in the United States. Home to about 52,000 troops as of earlier this year, it is located halfway between Austin and Waco.

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