Lessons learned from Fort Hood shooting

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- One of the lessons from last year's Fort Hood, Texas, shooting is that commanders should learn the symptoms of potential workplace violence, a study says.

The U.S. Defense Department Friday released the results of the review, "Protecting the Force: Lessons learned from Fort Hood."

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is the sole suspect in the Nov. 5, 2009, Fort Hood shooting spree, which occurred less than a month before his planned deployment to Afghanistan. Hasan is charged with 13 counts of murder and 32 counts of attempted murder.

Other recommendations from the review include:

-- Ensuring commander and supervisor access to information in personnel records throughout a service member's career.

-- Improving law enforcement and force protection information-sharing with partner agencies and among installations to ensure all relevant personnel are aware of, and able to analyze and respond to, potential threats.

-- Expanding installations' emergency response capabilities to include enabling enhanced 911 to notify dispatchers of a caller's location, as well as "mass notification" and warning systems to guide installation personnel and emergency responders to an emergency.

-- Integrating force protection policy with the creation of a consultative and policy-making body, which will bring together the various entities across the department with force protection responsibilities.

-- Ensuring top quality healthcare to service members and healthcare providers though the hiring of additional healthcare providers, particularly in the mental health field, and ensuring healthcare providers receive appropriate post-deployment respite and dwell time.

The final recommendations of the Fort Hood follow-on review are at http://www.defense.gov/news/d20100820FortHoodFollowon.pdf .