A local family breathed a sigh of relief Friday after hearing, late Thursday night, from their son, who's stationed at Fort Hood. The father of Private Jordan Allman said Thursday was very scary for him and his wife. On Friday they, like everyone else, were left wondering how this could have happened.
"I was freaked out myself. Because it's not supposed to happen here," said Mitchell Edmondson, father of Allman. It wasn't until 8 o'clock Thursday night that Edmondson and his wife got the phone call they'd been waiting for.
"I was waiting for her to get the relief, she needed to hear the voice," said Edmondson. They heard via text message earlier in the day that their son was safe; not among the 13 soldiers killed in Thursday's massacre. Edmondson, a veteran, says he wonders why no one saw the signs that this attack was coming. "If he made comments before, somewhere, somebody dropped the ball and somebody should have looked into it a little further."
The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, has been called a devout Muslim, and the question has been raised whether this attack was motivated by the fact that he was about to deploy to Afghanistan.
But Emad Meerza, the spokesman for the Islamic Shoura Council of Bakersfield, says this wasn't an act of terrorism and he thinks any backlash against the Muslim community will be short lived. "This is really an individual that broke down and lost control. I think moreover if we had a true terrorist act where it was significant, in the name of Islam, I think that would be more of a real concern. I think this is something that will have a temporary effect," said Meerza.
