Army Ignored Warning Signs Before Shootings Soldier Who Shot 19 ‘Fixated On Death’

A paratrooper “fixated on death” who shot 19 soldiers on his Army base would have been discharged before the shootings if officials had followed Army regulations, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Sgt. William Kreutzer Jr., sentenced to die for the Oct. 27, 1995, attack that killed an officer and wounded 18 other soldiers at Fort Bragg, was high-strung, depressed and obsessed with violence and killing before the shootings, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

The newspaper cited Army psychiatric records, and court and investigative papers.

Kreutzer, who opened fire from a foxhole on 1,300 82nd Airborne Division troopers at morning calisthenics, spoke about killing almost from the time he joined the army in February 1992, the newspaper said.

After he joined the 82nd Airborne in 1993, a team leader, Spec. 4 Junior Estrada, said Kreutzer “seemed to be fixated on death and always seemed to speak about killing animals, people and just about anything.”

He talked of stabbing a squadron of soldiers with his bayonet, running over troops with a truck wrapped in concertina wire and of assassinating generals, the newspaper said.

Kreutzer had asked for help with his emotional problems more than a year before the attack. “I feel a great deal of anger and hatred and I am preoccupied with violent feelings/ thoughts,” his application for psychiatric help stated.

Army regulations say a soldier diagnosed with even a mild personality disorder may be discharged.

After undergoing treatment, however, Kreutzer was declared fit for duty, promoted, put in charge of a squad of young soldiers and given responsibility for a stockroom of powerful weapons.

Army officials have said there was little that could have been done to prevent the shooting.

“There was no indication that he was going to do all this,” said Maj. Mark Wiggins, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne.

In 1994, according to Army records, Kreutzer told Capt. Darren Fong, the 82nd Airborne’s counselor, that on several occasions he had held a gun to his temple or chest and considered killing himself.

Fong told Kreutzer’s superiors, but concluded Kreutzer was not a threat. Contrary to Army guidelines, neither Fong nor Kreutzer’s superiors referred the case to a psychiatrist or psychologist, the newspaper said.