New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill was on MSDNC (or whatever the network calls itself after decoupling from NBC News) talking about the planned military firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan. She said this:
"The thing that just keeps breaking my heart: imagine the 20-year-old, maybe the 18-year-old that stepped up to serve, that gets orders and says, you’re going to go shoot this guy who’s in a wheelchair."
Michael Steele nodded. Steele is a Republican, and a never-Trumper, though that is secondary. The stare looked intense. I wanted to believe he had already checked out by the time she finished.
NJ Gov. Mikie Sherrill on the execution of Nidal Hasan: "The thing that just keeps breaking my heart: imagine the 20-year-old, maybe the 18-year-old that stepped up to serve, that gets orders and says, you’re going to go shoot this guy who’s in a wheelchair." https://t.co/6WdVnDjvTt
— Ezydu (@ezradulis) October 17, 2026
Hasan is the Army psychiatrist who walked into the readiness processing center at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, shouted “Allahu akbar,” and opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. More than thirty were wounded. He has been paralyzed from the waist down since the police shot him to stop the attack. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2013. The appellate process finished. President Trump approved the sentence this month. The Army set December 3 at Fort Hood. There was discussion of livestreaming his execution; that part was walked back.
One of the thirteen was Private Francheska Velez, 21, from Chicago. She had just returned from Iraq. She was pregnant. Witnesses heard her crying “My baby! My baby!” as she was shot. The unborn child died with her.
h/t Newsalert
Sherrill is a Navy veteran. In her written statement she said Hasan killed thirteen innocent soldiers and deserves to be brought to justice. The public spectacle, she argued, runs against the values she took an oath to protect. What she said keeps her up at night is the detail of soldiers to the firing squad—the psychological burden, the blanks some rifles traditionally carried, the young person who feels bound to follow the order.
On the air she narrowed it further. The thing that keeps breaking her heart is the image of the 20-year-old, or the 18-year-old, who stepped up to serve and then gets told to shoot the man in the wheelchair.
That is the sentence she chose to say out loud.
Earlier: The Sentence Is the Sentence
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