An Army sergeant who authorities said opened fire on his own unit at a military base in Georgia sent a cryptic text message to his aunt before the shooting, according to the sergeant’s father: Soon, the sergeant wrote, he would be in a better place.
Five soldiers were wounded in the attack at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield on Wednesday morning, which ended when other soldiers tackled the gunman, according to the base’s commander, Brig. Gen. John W. Lubas. The victims are expected to recover.
Officials identified the suspect as Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, an automated logistics sergeant from Jacksonville, Florida, assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team. He was in custody and talking to investigators, Lubas said.
The sergeant’s father, Eddie Radford, 52, who lives in Jacksonville, said in an interview with The New York Times that he hadn’t noticed anything unusual about his son’s behavior recently, and didn’t know what might have led him to attack his fellow soldiers. “It’s hard for me to process.”
He said his son had been seeking a transfer, however, and had complained to his family of racism at Fort Stewart, where he had been stationed for several years.
Quornelius Radford, who is Black, sent a text message to his aunt Wednesday morning which “said that he loved everybody, and that he’ll be in a better place because he was about to go and do something,” Eddie Radford said.
He had not seen the message himself, he said, but it was described to him by the aunt, who could not immediately be reached.
Quornelius Radford had not served in combat overseas, Lubas said in a news conference, and had no known history of disciplinary issues in the military. “We’re still not certain about the motivations,” the general said.
Eddie Radford also said his son did not have a history of serious mental health issues, though he sometimes dealt with depression tied to the death of his mother, which happened when he was a child. He joined the Army because several of his uncles are veterans, his father said.
Officials could not say how the suspect had concealed the weapon used in the shooting. Firearms are strictly regulated at Fort Stewart and on other military bases. “We’re going to have to determine how he was able to get a handgun to his place of duty,” Lubas said.
Commanders were also not aware that the sergeant had been arrested in May until after the shooting, Lubas said. Court records show that he was charged with misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated and running a red light. He was scheduled to go before a judge on Aug. 20.
About 8,800 people live at Fort Stewart, about 40 miles southwest of Savannah. Officials on the base, which is the home of the 3rd Infantry Division, said the shooting took place in the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team area.
The base was locked down at about 11 a.m., moments after the first reports that shots had been fired. Pfc. Shane Labbe, 21, a tank mechanic, and several other soldiers took shelter in the base’s armory, according to his father, Robert Labbe, who talked to his son by phone during the lockdown.
Robert Labbe, who was at his trucking job in Connecticut, said he was concerned for his son, but they both figured the armory was the safest place to be. “It is where they keep all the weapons,” he said. “I said, ‘At least you can defend yourself if the guy breaks in.’”
Fort Stewart is in Hinesville, a town of about 35,000 on the southeastern coast of Georgia, where road signs warn of “tanks crossing.” Many veterans who used to work at the base settled nearby after retirement. At the busy Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Wednesday evening, the shooting was the main topic of discussion.
Edward Dermody, 62, a Navy veteran who has lived near the base for a decade, wondered what could induce a sergeant to open fire on members of his own unit. “What happened in that environment to trigger that?” Dermody said.
The Army Criminal Investigation Division was leading the investigation of the shooting, including the search for a motive, and the FBI’s Savannah office was assisting the investigation.
Other shootings have scarred military bases in recent years, including when a gunman killed three people at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida in 2019 before he was fatally shot by officers.
That same year, a Navy sailor fatally shot two shipyard workers at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. And in 2014, a soldier who was being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas, killing three people and wounding 16.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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