Sheboygan County Fort Hood Survivor Wants to Witness Hasan Execution as Livestream Plan Splits GOP

Amber Dimoff, a Sheboygan County woman shot during the 2009 Fort Hood massacre, wants to be present Dec. 3 when the Army executes the man who shot her, she told NBC 26. The Army plans to put Nidal Hasan to death by firing squad at Fort Hood, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement that the execution would be livestreamed has drawn objections from a growing list of Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson among them.

Dimoff was a young Army private when Hasan opened fire. She still carries bullet fragments in her back and told NBC 26 she lives with lower back pain and PTSD. Her commanders credited her with helping other wounded soldiers get to safety. She said she received an email update about the execution this week but learned from news reports that it would be carried out by firing squad and streamed online. Being there, she said, would help her “close this chapter and move on to the next one.”

How the Execution Was Ordered

President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s death sentence Oct. 2, and Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle directed four days later that it be carried out by firing squad, according to the Army. The execution is set for 1 p.m. Central on Dec. 3 at Fort Hood. Army Regulation 190-55 requires the date to fall 60 to 150 days after presidential approval, and federal military law bars any military death sentence from being carried out until the president signs off.

Hegseth said on Real America’s Voice on Oct. 8 that Hasan would face “a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be,” and that the public would be able to watch, CBS News reported. The 1 p.m. start matches the time of day of the 2009 shooting, CBS Texas noted. The military hasn’t executed anyone since a 1961 hanging and hasn’t used a firing squad since 1945.

The method surprised some inside the Army. The service had been preparing since at least February for lethal injections at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and its last written firing-squad procedures date to 1959, ABC News reported, citing a U.S. official who called the decision unexpected. Army planners are also weighing how to protect the identities of the soldiers chosen to fire.

Republicans Split Over the Livestream

Johnson told CBS’s Robert Costa that some House Republicans worry a video “would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” CBS News reported Monday. He said he wouldn’t watch and planned to tell the White House that “not everybody is in favor of the idea.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska wrote that a livestream would give Hasan “the martyrdom he seeks.” Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said “the death penalty is not entertainment,” and Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri said the country “does not and should not livestream executions.”

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the plan “beyond disgusting” and compared public executions to the practices of Iran and Afghanistan, Al Jazeera reported. Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, wrote that “live-streaming executions is what jihadists do.” Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee backed Hegseth, writing that a “public execution is what this terrorist deserves.” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended the plan on “Face the Nation,” saying, “No one has to watch it.”

Democrats also condemned the plan. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called a livestream “a barbaric spectacle” and a gift to terrorist recruiters, and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called public executions “medieval.” A spokesperson for the United Nations human rights office said a broadcast would “breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”

Trump Hedges

Trump’s own account has shifted. Asked Friday whether he approved the livestream, he said, “Absolutely, I did,” according to CBS, then told CNY Central in Syracuse later that day he “wasn’t involved in that decision.” On Saturday he told reporters there are “two thoughts: don’t show it and show it” and said he would make the final call. Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn’t watch and added, “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen.”

Army policy limits execution witnesses to a short list that includes victims and their families, the prisoner’s lawyer and at least two journalists, and bars anyone under 18, according to Al Jazeera. Reed said a public execution would require a waiver from Trump. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency would defer to Hegseth on whether broadcasters could air it.

Survivors and Wisconsin’s Dead

Survivors don’t speak with one voice. Alonzo Lunsford, a retired Army sergeant who was shot seven times, plans to attend so that Hasan can see him, but he told CBS Texas he doesn’t want it to become “some pay-per-view event.”

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009. Two of the dead were from Wisconsin: Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, who served in a Madison-based Army unit, and Russell Seager, 51, of Mount Pleasant, a VA nurse who treated veterans with mental health problems, WISN reported at the time. A military jury convicted Hasan in August 2013 and sentenced him to death, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case on March 31, 2025.