Donald Trump has given the green light to execute former Army Major Nidal Hasan for the 2009 Fort Hood shootings in Texas, when 13 people lost their lives. Now, the Pentagon has revealed the bombshell news that it will be live-streamed. Here’s all we know.
The execution of former Army Major Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be livestreamed, a Pentagon official told ABC News on Thursday.
Hasan was convicted of carrying out the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas, one of the deadliest attacks ever to take place on a U.S. military base. Thirteen people were killed, and 32 others were wounded.
The attack took place on November 5, 2009, and remains the deadliest non-combat attack on an American military installation.
According to KUT News, witnesses told the court in 2013 that they initially believed they were taking part in a training exercise and that the bullets hitting them were paintballs. But when they saw blood, they realized the shooting was real.
“There was no movement. There was no sound. So I yelled out, ‘Is everybody ‘OK?’ I started hearing, ‘Help me. I’m bleeding. I’ve been shot. Help me.’” Sgt 1st Class Maria Guerra said, per NBC, adding that she alleged she heard a woman cry out: “Please don’t, please don’t, my baby, my baby.”
The Army’s legal journal says Hasan was convicted by a general court-martial in 2013 and sentenced to death. Earlier in September, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said in September that he is seeking the death penalty for Hasan and that he is “100 percent commited to ensuring the death penatly is carried out” for him.
Nidal Hasan’s execution to be broadcasted live
Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s spokesperson, Sean Parnell, announced that the president personally approved the decision to use the firing squad.
“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended – and President Donald J. Trump has approved – death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Parnell wrote on X.
“He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting “Allahu Akbar” during the attack,” Parnell added. “Judgment Day for Hasan has finally come.”
Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3. The execution will take place at Fort Hood, Texas, the same place where Hasan shot 13 people to death. However, not everyone agrees that is a good thing.
John Galligan, a retired Army colonel and former military judge at Fort Hood who represented Hasan for years as a civilian attorney, said, “I’m surprised and shocked that they want to bring him back to Fort Hood. I think it’s more of a public spectacle, closely akin to almost, I see it more as political theater,” Galligan said.
How the execution of Nidal Hasan with firing squad will work
He added that making the execution public is, “not great for the confidence in our system of justice..”
So how will it work? Well, to start with, the Army’s rules for executions by firing squad haven’t been updated since 1959. However, the Army is now working quickly to create new rules for carrying out firing squad executions, a service official told ABC News.
The execution plan calls for eight riflemen, led by a senior enlisted soldier armed with a pistol. The firing squad would stand in a straight line, 15 paces away from the prisoner, whose wrists and ankles would be restrained. A chaplain would be allowed to stay with the prisoner until shortly before the shooting.
Between one and three of the eight rifles would be loaded with blank rounds, with the shooters selecting their weapons at random. The prisoner would wear a military uniform with all medals, insignia, and other identifying markings removed.
Before the execution, the prisoner would be given a chance to make a final statement. They would then be hooded, and a medical officer would place a four-inch target over the heart before leaving the area alongside the chaplain.
The firing squad would then be ordered to aim and fire simultaneously. If the prisoner survived the initial shots, the procedures state that the senior enlisted soldier would approach with a pistol and fire a final shot at the head from a distance of 12 inches.
First military execution in 60 years
However, it remains unclear how closely the Army would follow these decades-old procedures in Nidal Hasan’s case, or how they might be adapted given that he is paralyzed and uses a wheelchair.
The last military execution was in 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was put to death after being convicted of raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl in Austria. The Army’s own legal journal confirmed in May 2026 that Bennett remains the most recent U.S. service member to be executed.
What are your thoughts on having Nidel Hassan’s execution broadcast live? Please share your opinion in the comment section.
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