Document 6520258

WANT MORE? We’ve got it. salina.com
Friday
Serving Kansas since 1871★
NOT A SHOCKER: WSU head
coach Gregg Marshall is AP
Basketball Coach of the Year.
PAGE C1
FROM TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH:
“4th Trimester Bodies Project”
embraces motherhood.
PAGE D1
April 4, 2014
75 cents
Vol. 144, No. 94
Calling it quits
• David Letterman to retire
from late night TV in 2015.
PAGE C7
Fort Hood attack: Why did he do it?
Associated Press
Bob Gordon works on a memorial for the victims of Wednesday’s shooting at Fort Hood on Thursday at Central Christian Church in Killeen, Texas. A 34-year-old soldier, Spc. Ivan
Lopez, opened fire Wednesday on fellow service members at the military base, killing three and wounding 16 before committing suicide.
Argument may have preceded
deadly Fort Hood shooting
Texas shooting provokes debate
over ban on guns on bases
By WILL WEISSERT
and PAUL J. WEBER
By MARIA RECIO
Associated Press
FORT HOOD, Texas — The
soldier who killed three people
at Fort Hood may have argued
with another service member
prior to the attack,
and investigators
believe his unstable mental health
contributed to the
rampage, authorities said Thursday.
The base’s
senior officer, Lt.
Lopez
Gen. Mark Milley,
said there is a “strong possibility”
that Spc. Ivan Lopez had a “verbal
altercation” with another soldier
or soldiers immediately before
Wednesday’s shooting, which
unfolded on the same Army post
that was the scene of an infamous
2009 mass shooting.
However, there’s no indication
that he targeted specific soldiers,
Milley said.
Lopez never saw combat during a deployment to Iraq and had
shown no apparent risk of violence before the shooting, officials
said.
The 34-year-old truck driver
from Puerto Rico seemed to have
a clean record that showed no ties
to extremist groups. But the Army
secretary promised that investigators would keep all avenues open in
their inquiry of the soldier whose
rampage ended only after he fired
a final bullet into his own head.
See ARGUMENT, Page A3
It’s outta here
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Associated Press
Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, Fort Hood’s
senior officer, addresses
reporters following the shooting
that killed three people and
wounded 16 before the shooter
committed suicide.
WASHINGTON — The haunting
scene of another mass shooting
at Fort Hood is igniting a debate
among lawmakers, especially
from Texas, about the Pentagon’s
rules against personnel carrying
guns on military bases.
Wednesday’s shooting marks 28
victims killed in three mass shootings at military installations over
the past five years.
The 1993 Pentagon regulation
was designed to ensure safety by
imposing “limit and control” of
firearms on military and civilian
workers at bases.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas,
chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, warned
Thursday that military bases are
Don’t forget to vote
National juco
tournament to leave
Salina after 2015
By Tim Unruh
Salina Journal
Just before a Salina Area
Chamber of Commerce
contingent left for Colorado Springs on Thursday
morning, members were
informed they’d lost the
NJCAA Division I Women’s Basketball National
Championship tournament.
The group was headed
west aiming to continue
as hosts, as they have for
17 years. But the NJCAA
championship events committee gave the tournament to Lubbock, Texas
— from 2016 to 2018.
The association’s board
of directors won’t make
the decision official until
Saturday, said Mary Ellen
Leicht, the NJCAA executive director.
“There would have
been many who knew the
outcome of that, and they
wanted to let us know,”
said Tiffany Benien, the
tournament director, and
sports and events coordinator at the chamber.
The event will be staged
for the 18th straight year
in 2015 at the Salina Bicentennial Center.
FORECAST
High: 56
Low: 31
Sunny with wind
gusting to 24
mph. / c6
• More than half of the 22,000 mail ballots
sent out in the Salina School District’s $110
million bond issue have been returned,
Saline County Clerk Don Merriman said late
Thursday afternoon.
• Merriman said that 11,666 ballots had been
counted, and “well over 12,000 have been
returned.
• Merriman estimates that more than 300
ballots had been returned with the outer
envelope unsigned. Those won’t be counted
unless the voter comes to his office at the CityCounty Building and signs it before the deadline
at noon Tuesday.
• Merriman’s office has been sending out letters
to people whose ballot envelopes weren’t signed,
asking them to come in, and many have.
• New projections lower the cost of the
district’s building project, Page A5.
See NJCAA, Page a2
ju s t
say i n’
If they need
revenue
If the state of
Kansas needs
revenue, it might try getting it from
the state income tax on businesses.
This would pay for education and
the KanCare extension, with money
left over to repay campaign funding
favors.
— GARY SIMS, Herington
Associated Press
According to Lt. Gen. Mark Milley,
Ivan Lopez, the shooter,
purchased his weapon recently at
Guns Galore, seen Thursday in
Killeen, Texas.
now, in effect, “soft targets” that
make those working and living at
Department of Defense facilities
vulnerable.
See GUNS, Page A3
Heil ‘freaked out’
after Tyler’s death
DeWeese expected
to testify today in
his murder trial
By ERIN MATHEWS
Salina Journal
A neighbor of Joel M.
Heil’s testified Thursday
that she heard a loud vehicle pull up outside his house
in the early morning hours
of April 26, 2013, and saw
Heil walk in and go straight
to his bedroom, where he
sat on the floor and leaned
against the wall.
“He was nervous,” said
Jayme Cartlich. “He was
pale — a little freaked out,
maybe.”
Cartlich was among witnesses on the second day of
defense evidence presentation in the first-degree
• What’s on your mind?
“Just Sayin’ ” must be fewer than
100 words and include your name
and phone number. Email them to
letters@salina.com, or mail them
to Salina Journal letters, P.O. Box
740, Salina, KS 67402-0740.
INSIDE Opinion / a7 • Classifieds / b1 • Fun / b3 • Sports / c1 • Almanac / c6 • encore! / d1
murder trial of Dane C.
DeWeese, who is accused
of assisting Heil in the
murder Kristin Tyler, 27, of
Salina.
Attorney Doug Thompson, who represents
DeWeese,
said his client would
testify this
morning
in Saline
County District Court.
Cartlich
DeWeese
said Heil’s
clothes were wet and dirty.
She said her fiance asked
Kimberly French, a teen
runaway who was staying
at Heil’s house at the time,
if Heil wanted company.
See tyler, Page a3
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