Kimberly Munley, Officer Who Shot Fort Hood Suspect, Is Firearms Expert - NYTimes.com

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By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

KILLEEN, Tex. — The police officer who brought down a gunman after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base was on the way to have her car repaired when she heard a report over a police radio that someone was shooting people in a center where soldiers are processed before they are deployed abroad, authorities said on Friday.

As she pulled up to the center, the officer, Kimberly Munley, spotted the gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.

Sergeant Munley bolted from her car and shot at Major Hasan. He turned toward her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and the gunmen went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.

Whether Sergeant Munley was solely responsible for taking down Major Hassan or whether he was also hit by gunfire from another responder is still unclear, but she was the first to fire at him.

Sergeant Munley, who is 34, is an expert in firearms and a member of the SWAT team for the civilian police department on the base, officials said.

She received two wounds in each thigh and one to her right wrist. The base’s fire chief applied torniquets to stop her bleeding, and she was taken to a hospital that the officials did not identify, where she was reported in stable condition on Tuesday

Sergeant Munley joined the police force on the sprawling base in January 2008 after a career in the Army. Mr. Medley described her as highly trained, and said she had received specific training in a tactic called active shooter protocol, which was intended for the kind of situation she encountered on Thursday.

She lives with her husband, who is a soldier, in a tidy community of ranch homes on the south side of Killeen. Her neighbors described her as quiet and friendly. Her husband, who has not been identified, is currently assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

She was also scrupulously honest, according to friends. A year ago, she took pains to pay for the damage she caused to a neighbor’s car with her sport utility vehicle, even though no one had witnessed the fender bender.

“She seems like a sweet person, she tends to say hi when she drives by,” said one neighbor, Helen Pleas, 20 years old.

Sergeant Munley’s biography on her Twitter site reflected her sunny outlook. “I go to sleep peacefully at night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life,” she wrote.

Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, commander of the base, said Friday morning that Sergeant Munley had reacted swiftly and aggressively to stop the gunman. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” he told the Associated Press.

Mr. Medley, the emergency services director, said that Sergeant Munley was an advanced firearms instructor for the civilian police force, which is employed by the Department of the Army to assist the military police on the grounds of the vast fort, where 150,000 soldiers and their families live and work.

Sergeant Munley comes from North Carolina, where her father owns a hardware store in Carolina Beach and is a former mayor. She attended Hoggard County High School.

According to the Associated Press, Sergeant Munley worked as an officer in the Wrightville Beach Police Department in North Carolina from 2000 to February 2002. She received three letters of commendation or recognition for her performance there.