A US Army sergeant opened fire with his personal handgun at Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday, injuring five fellow soldiers before being overpowered by others and taken into custody, according to military officials.
All five soldiers were listed in stable condition following the incident and are expected to recover, though three required surgery, according to Brigadier General John Lubas, the base commander.
Lockdown security measures on the base were lifted after the suspect was taken into custody, and there was no threat to the surrounding community, Lubas said. A motive was not readily apparent, he added.
Suspect Identified
The suspect was identified as Quornelius Radford, 28, an active-duty sergeant specializing in automated logistics and assigned to a supply unit of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team at Fort Stewart. Lubas said Radford, stationed at Fort Stewart since 2022, had not previously been deployed to combat.
Lubas said at an afternoon press conference that the shooting unfolded shortly before 11 a.m. local time at the suspect’s work post on base and involved co-workers in his unit.
“I don’t have reason to believe that it had anything to do with a training event. Other than that, I can’t state the motivations for this soldier.”
How the pistol slipped through base security onto the installation remained unknown, the general said.
Prior DUI Charges
Other soldiers in the area who witnessed the shooting tackled and subdued the suspect before law enforcement arrived and took him into custody, according to the general. Radford was later questioned by Army investigators and was being held pending charging decisions.
Lubas gave little information about Radford’s background except to say he had a prior drunken-driving arrest, which was unknown to the chain of command until “the event occurred and we started looking into the law enforcement databases.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Donald Trump said, “The entire nation is praying for the victims and their families.” He called the suspect “horrible”.
Common Crime
Mass shootings are relatively common in the US, where guns are widely available, and military bases, which are among the highest-security places in the country, have not been spared.
The deadliest was at the Fort Hood Army base in 2009, when a major fatally shot unarmed soldiers in a medical building with a laser-sighted handgun, killing 13 people and injuring more than 30. Less than five years later, a soldier at the same Texas base fatally shot three service members and injured 16 others before killing himself.
In 2013, an employee of a government defence contractor killed 12 people at Washington’s Navy Yard. In 2019, a Saudi Air Force lieutenant shot and killed three people and wounded eight others at a US Navy base in Pensacola, Florida.
Fort Stewart is located in Hinesville, about 225 miles (362 km) southeast of Atlanta and 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Savannah. Nearly 9,000 people live at the base, according to the 2020 Census.
The base supports approximately 15,000 active-duty Army military personnel, as well as thousands of military retirees, family members, and others, according to its website.
(With inputs from Reuters)
