• US Marine kills two colleagues at Quantico base

    A Marine opened fire on two of his comrades Thursday night at a base in Quantico, Va., before turning the gun on himself, leaving all three dead. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Courtney Kube and John Newland, NBC News

    A Marine opened fire on two of his comrades Thursday night at a base in Quantico, Va., before turning the gun on himself, leaving all three dead, military officials said.

    A relationship dispute was believed to be behind the shooting, which occurred in the staff barracks area of the Officer Candidates School at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Northern Virginia, a Marine official said.

    The assailant and both victims, a man and a woman, were staff members at the school and not students, a senior defense official said. The official called the incident "isolated," adding: "There was nothing random here."

    Three Marines – two men and one woman – are dead after a shooting on a Marine base in Quantico, Va., including the suspected shooter. Authorities are indicating the shooting was a result of a relationship dispute. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

    The names of the dead were being withheld for 24 hours pending notification of next of kin.

    Military police and Prince William County, Va., Sheriff's Department officers responded to a report of gunshots around 10:30 p.m. local time and were on the scene within five minutes, base commander Col. David W. Maxwell said at a press conference on Friday.

    They found one Marine dead and the shooter inside the barracks, a Marine official said. At 3 a.m., officers entered the barracks and found two more bodies, including that of the shooter, the official said. The three, all active duty Marines, were pronounced dead at the scene.

    Why officers hesitated before entering the barracks remained unclear Friday morning.

    “There was a lag but I can’t go into the details about the length of the lag the occurred,” base spokesman Lt. Agustin Solivan said Friday.

    The assailant appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, base officials said.

    Authorities did not fire any shots and did not hear any shots fired, Maxwell said. “There was no standoff or barricades,” Maxwell said.

    Early reports indicated that the shooter may have barricaded himself in the barracks.

    The base had been under lockdown after the incident, but its status early Friday returned to "Code Green," meaning operations were normal.

    A message posted on Quantico's Facebook page had earlier had told residents to remain in their homes with their doors locked. Personnel on the base were notified of the situation via an emergency alert system. The base returned to normal operations at 2:30 a.m., Maxwell said.

    “Early this morning, the Secretary was saddened to learn of the shootings at Marine Corps Base Quantico,” defense department spokesman George Little said in a written statement. “His heart and his prayers are with them and their families.”

    Quantico is about 40 miles south of Washington in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

    “This is a truly tragic loss again for the Marine Corps, which has had a number of tragic losses in the last couple of weeks,” Maxwell said.

    The base provided chaplains and counselors to base residents on Friday.

    The Officer Candidates School calls itself "the first proving ground for future Marine officers." Its graduates attain the rank of 2nd lieutenant.

    It has a reputation for being challenging.

    "The mission of OCS is to train, screen and evaluate candidates, who must demonstrate a high level of leadership potential and commitment to success in order to earn a commission," the Marine Corps says on the school's website. "Officer Candidates School training will be more demanding than any you've experienced before, regardless of commissioning program."

    Matthew Barakat / AP

    The entrance to Marine Corps Base Quantico in Northern Virginia is shown early Friday after three Marines, including the suspected assailant, died in a shooting.

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    NBC News' Denise Ono, Christopher Nelson and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

  • How March Madness and 'panties' figure into hearing of Bradley Manning

    Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images

    Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted by military police departing the courtroom at Fort Meade, Md., in April. The U.S. Army private is accused of passing classified documents to secret-spilling WikiLeaks,

    By Courtney Kube, NBC News

    Updated at 10 p.m. ET: The defense team for Private First Class Bradley Manning — charged in the biggest security breach in U.S. history — invoked the soldier’s excitement about March Madness and questioned a Marine about whether he refers to his underpants as “panties.”

    A former intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010, Manning stands accused of giving thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, including logs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables. If convicted of the most serious count of the 22 charges against him — aiding the enemy — Manning could face life in prison.

    Manning was detained on May 29, 2010, and has been in pre-trial lock-up since. The pretrial hearings have focused primarily on a period of nearly nine months that he was locked up alone in a small cell at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., and forced to sleep naked for several nights. His lawyers say the solitary confinement constituted illegal punishment — and grounds to dismiss all charges.

    Military prosecutors in the case maintain that Manning’s treatment was proper — confining him initially as a maximum-security detainee who posed a risk of injury to himself or others, and after further evaluation changing his status to medium risk.

    In Fort Meade on Sunday, the Marine who served as the Quantico brig counselor while Manning was held there defended the decision to keep Manning on strict, "Prevention of Injury" status for months - much longer than most other detainees.

    Marine Master Sergeant Craig Blenis said that Manning's statements and actions warranted his restricted status, including when he responded to a question about his suicidal tendencies with the written statement, "Always planning, never acting."

    Blenis argued that you don't go to an airport and joke about a bomb, you don't go to D.C. and joke about assassination, and you don't go to a jail and joke about suicide. "If someone tells me they're going to shoot themselves in the face, I'm not going to give them a gun," he said.

    Asked about Manning's claim that his statement was just sarcasm, Blenis said that he doesn't interpret sarcasm, "not when you're talking about hurting yourself." 


    The defense argued that Manning's continued good behavior should have warranted fewer restrictions. Blenis replied that being polite and courteous doesn't mean someone will not hurt themselves.

    Blenis referenced several instances of Manning's odd behavior, citing posing in front of the mirror and flexing his muscles, playing peek-a-boo with himself, and licking the bars of his cell.

    Defense attorney David Coombs asked why posing in the mirror was unorthodox, saying that he has done that before, too. Is playing peek-a-boo odd? he asked.

    "It's not normal," Blenis said.

    In March 2011 Manning made another statement about suicide, saying that if he wanted to kill himself, he could use his underwear or his socks. The guards then began to take away Manning's underwear and socks at night.

    Coombs asked Blenis about an email between some members of the Brig staff that said to make sure Manning was not standing naked at evening count, saying, "You should be taking his panties right before he lays down."

    Blenis responded that the words underwear and panties can be interchangeable.

    "So you call your underwear panties?" Coombs asked.

    "Sometimes I do, sir," Blenis said.

    "That's your testimony?" Coombs asked.

    "Yes, sir," he responded.

    March Madness?
    Earlier in the day, Staff Sergeant Ryan Jordan told the defense during cross-examination that one reason Manning was kept on prevention of injury status – essentially one level below suicide watch – was that Manning rarely engaged in conversation with the guards.

    Jordan related an instance when he and Manning spoke about the upcoming March Madness — the frenzy around the national college basketball playoffs — and said that Manning talked about how he had enjoyed filling out brackets in previous years.

    Coombs asked Jordan whether Manning having a possible gender identity disorder was factored into the decision to keep Manning on prevention of injury status, referring to the defendant as Breanna Elizabeth Manning, the alias Manning used when he first arrived at Quantico.

    A gender identity disorder "didn't weigh heavily" in his consideration, Jordan said.

    The defense attorney also put Manning’s height and weight on the record Sunday for consideration by the judge, postulating that Manning may have been quiet because he was physically intimidated by Jordan. Staff Sergeant Jordan stands 6 foot 9 inches, while Manning is 5 foot 2 inches and weighs about 105 pounds, Coombs said.

    NBC News' Kari Huus, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

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  • Bradley Manning's psychiatrist says his recommendations ignored by Quantico staff

    By John Bailey, NBC News
    FORT MEADE, Md. – One of the psychiatrists who treated Army Private First Class Bradley Manning at the Quantico brig said staff continually ignored his recommendations that Manning was not a threat to himself.


    The Army private is accused of leaking thousands of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks but there are hearings this week to consider a motion by the defense that argues Manning's harsh confinement at the Quantico brig is grounds to dismiss the charges against him.

    Testifying Wednesday afternoon, Navy Captain William Hocter, the behavioral health specialist who treated Manning at the Quantico brig, said it seemed the base's command made up its mind to keep Manning under strict observation and that clinical recommendations to take the detainee off of restrictive watch were ignored.

    While at Quantico, Manning was classified as a maximum-security prisoner, usually reserved for violent offenders and escape risks, and as a risk to himself. Manning's defense team argues that those classifications were unwarranted and that they gave the brig staff reason to treat Manning harshly, including keeping him on 23-hour lockdown in a small cell and, for a period of several days, denying him clothing at night.

    Manning's psychiatrist, Cap. Hocter, testified that he repeatedly recommended the classification that Manning was a risk to himself be dropped, but that the brig's staff ignored his recommendations.

    "I've just never experienced anything like this," said Hocter. "It was clear to me that they had made up their mind on a certain course of actions and my recommendations didn't really matter."

    Hocter also said that it is common for patients to be taken off suicide watch after it is determined they are no longer at risk.

    Earlier in the day, the commander in charge of the base's security at the time, Marine Colonel Robert Oltman, testified that doctors' recommendations are only one element in a larger decision on how to classify detainees and that other factors led to Manning remaining classified as a risk to himself.

    The detention center at Quantico had another detainee commit suicide just months before Manning arrived.

    Col. Oltman explained that Pfc. Manning was classified a suicide risk even before he arrived at Quantico because Manning had mentioned suicide while detained in Kuwait and had even fashioned a makeshift noose.  Oltman went on to say that he remained classified as a risk to himself because the staff observed no change in Manning's behavior and even witnessed him do strange things like lick the bars of his cell, play peek-a-boo with guards, and withdraw from any interaction with the staff.

    The psychiatrist, Cap. Hocter, testified that it was reported Manning licked his cell bars while sleepwalking, an explainable side effect of drugs he was taking. Hocter also testified that the other behavior was not outside the norm for a detainee who could simply be bored from being kept in isolation.

    After nine months at Quantico, Manning was transferred to the Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, KS, where he was placed in a medium security facility with less harsh conditions.

    Cap. Hocter was one of two psychiatrists to treat Manning while he was detained at Quantico. The other, Army Col. Rick Malone, is expected to testify Friday.

    Manning himself has not yet testified in this series of hearings or in any part of the case thus far. He is listed on the defense's list of witnesses for this hearing, but that does not necessarily mean he will testify.

    The hearings are scheduled to resume Thursday morning and continue through the weekend.

     

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