The Other Officer Who Took Down Nidal Malik Hasan

Did you know that there were two officers involved with the take down of Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan?  The MSM has only been focused on one of them, Fort Hood hero, Sgt. Kimberly Munley.  While I applaud the bravery of officer Munley, I wonder why the other officer hasn’t received the same amount of recognition.

Have you heard the name, Sgt. Mark Todd?

Me neither.

This piece from KWTX.com appeared on November 7th:

Todd, who’s assigned to the department’s K-9 Division, joined Sgt. Kimberly Munley, who was hailed as a hero Friday for her actions, in a firefight with Maj. Nidal Milak Hasan that lasted less than a minute Thursday afternoon.

The two officers responded within minutes of the report of the shooting.

Todd said Hasan started firing on him and Munley, who took cover behind a vehicle.

He said Munley left the cover to pursue Hasan, while Todd followed around the other side of the building.

Using her standard issue 9-mm Beretta, Munley exchanged gunfire with Hasan, striking him at least once, Fort Hood officials said Friday.

She was shot in legs and the wrist, said Chuck Medley, Fort Hood’s director of emergency response services.

When Todd looked around the corner of the building, he said he saw Munley on the ground and Hasan hiding behind a post firing at people who were trying to escape.

Todd said he fired five shots and Hasan fell.

He said he took away the wounded psychiatrist’s guns and then handcuffed him.

“We did just like we were trained to do…shouting commands and working as a team,” Todd said.

“We had no time to feel anything, just to react.”

Todd then turned his attention to helping injured soldiers.

“I felt so much for the wounded and the dead and their families,” he said.

And the AP via PoliceOne.com reported November 8th:

There has been confusion since Thursday’s rampage about whose bullets actually brought Hasan down. At first, Munley’s supervisor said it was her shot to Hasan’s torso that leveled him, but Army officials would only say that an investigation was under way.

Munley was down by the time he engaged Hasan, Todd said. He wasn’t sure if Munley had wounded the suspect, because “once he started firing at me, I lost track of her.”

Todd said he fired his Beretta at Hasan. Hasan flinched, Todd said, then slid down against a telephone pole and fell on his back. Todd says he then heard bystanders say “two more, two more.”

At first he thought the soldiers meant there were two more suspects, but then he realized they were urging him to fire two more rounds at Hasan, thinking he was still posing a threat.

Todd approached the suspect and saw that he still had a weapon in his hand. Todd kicked away the gun, which he said had a laser-aiming device attached to it.

“He was breathing, his eyes were blinking. You could tell that he was fading out. He didn’t say anything. He was just kind of blinking,” said Todd.

Todd handcuffed Hasan and checked to see if he was still alive. “He had a good pulse,” said Todd. He also cut off pieces of Hasan’s clothes so he could get first aid and noticed Hasan had gunshot wounds on his side and back.

From the time he got to the scene until Hasan dropped was just 30-45 seconds, Todd said. “It was pretty intense. There was a lot of people shouting, a lot of people giving directions,” he said.

Munley, whose injuries weren’t believed to be life threatening, won wide praise after the incident. Facebook fan pages quickly sprouted up, with well-wishers cheering her heroism and crediting the officers with saving lives.

I think Sgt. Todd deserves a Facebook fan page, too.