US to livestream Army execution of Fort Hood shooter, Pentagon official says

Hegseth did not say how. "The ​Secretary is correct. It will be livestreamed.

Details will follow," the Pentagon official, speaking on condition of ⁠anonymity. Hegseth said deciding to execute Hasan by firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 pm — the approximate time, day of the week ​and location of the 2009 shooting — was a "no brainer.

""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," Hegseth said. Asked if Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth said: "Don't care.

We'll see him on December 3. "PRESIDENT MUST APPROVE FIRING SQUAD EXECUTIONA military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013, after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder for opening ​fire with a laser-sighted handgun in a medical facility at the sprawling central Texas military base.

The shooting came weeks before Hasan, now 56, was ​scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan. He was left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair from being shot by police during his arrest. Under US military law, a ‌US president ⁠must approve an execution by firing squad.

President Donald Trump did so on Hegseth's recommendation, the Pentagon disclosed on Monday. "It hasn't been since World War Two since we've done that. Well, kind of like the mentality we had in World War Two," Hegseth said.

The White House declined to say whether Trump supported the livestreaming, referring questions to the Pentagon. The group Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, said Hasan's execution would be the first military execution since ​1961. ​Center, the 1961 execution was carried ⁠out by hanging.

The last known executions by US military firing squads were in 1945, the center reported. At least five states have firing squads on the books, Center. In 2025, South Carolina carried ​out the first such execution in the United States in 15 years.

Death by firing squad is one of ​several forms of capital ⁠punishment the Trump administration recently added to permissible forms of execution for the gravest of federal crimes, along with electrocution and gas asphyxiation.

The number of federal execution options was expanded in part because of increasing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections, which have also sometimes proved challenging to carry out.

Plans by the ⁠state of ​Tennessee to execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years went ​awry last week when prison personnel botched attempts to administer a lethal injection, leaving the death-row inmate, Christa Pike, alive but hospitalized. Her lawyers said on Wednesday she awoke "angry and confused" in ​a hospital.

Pike remains very sick and shackled to her hospital bed, they said.