October 09, 2026
Pentagon to livestream firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan on Dec 3
Headline card by The Night Desk
Pentagon to livestream firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan on Dec 3
The Pentagon said Thursday it will livestream the military's first firing-squad execution in decades — allowing the public to watch as Nidal Hasan, the man who killed 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting, is put to death at the same Texas base where he carried out the massacre.
What was announced
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth vowed in an interview this week to let the public watch a firing squad execute Hasan at Fort Hood (CNN):
"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."
A Pentagon official said Thursday that the execution — which Hegseth recommended and President Donald Trump approved — "will be livestreamed," and Hegseth confirmed it in a post on X.
Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle set the date for Hasan's execution for December 3 at 1 p.m. local time. Hegseth said the timing was deliberate:
"We're going to do it at one o'clock, which is when he did it, and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad."
Trump backs it, Vance won't watch
Trump told reporters Friday he approved the unusual plan to broadcast the execution:
"Absolutely, I approved."
"We're giving a man the death penalty who killed 14 soldiers a couple of years ago," Trump said Friday, adding: "Death penalty through firing squad — and, uh, and he deserves it. Killed and wounded many, many people. Maniac." (NY Post)
Vice President JD Vance, however, said he doubts the execution will actually be viewable — and won't tune in regardless:
"I don't know that that's actually going to happen. If it's ultimately livestreamed, I'm not going to be watching it."
The 2009 massacre
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, opened fire at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, inside a medical building, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. He shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he fired at fellow troops, later confessing the shooting was meant to stop U.S. forces from deploying to Afghanistan.
He was convicted in July 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and sentenced to death. He would become the first person executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since World War II, experts say.
Backlash
Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned the plan as a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death" (Oklahoman):
"The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people."
The Archbishop urged Hegseth to reconsider. Bipartisan senators have also objected to broadcasting the execution.
Oct 11 update: UN calls the plan "abhorrent"
The United Nations condemned the livestream plan Friday, calling it "abhorrent" and warning it could violate the prohibition against torture.
"These kinds of public executions we've seen in other countries, whether it's Iran or Afghanistan ... can constitute a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, or punishment," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a daily briefing in New York.
"Showing it live is tantamount ... to it being public, and could be a violation of the prohibition against torture. A government executing someone in public, or in front of live cameras, frankly, is abhorrent."
Separately, Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office, said in Geneva: "Public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."
Hasan is set to become the first person executed by U.S. military firing squad since 1945.
Source: CNN / Reuters / NY Post / Reuters
Source: CNN — read the original report
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