Former Soldier Charged with Threatening 'Mass Killing' at Ft. Hood

A disgraced former soldier at Ft. Hood has been charged with threatening to 'take hostages and start a mass killing spree' at the Army Post because he was not being paid what he considered to be back wages he was owed, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.

Thomas Chestnut, 28, is charged with 'interstate communications with threat to injure' and faces up to five years in federal prison.

Federal prosecutors say last month Chestnut called Ft. Hood from his home in the Austin suburb of Dripping Springs and talked with a sergeant in his former unit in the First Cavalry Division.  

"Chestnut threatened to go to Ft. Hood, kill the sergeant, take hostages, start a mass killing spree and then kill himself if he was not allowed to speak with 'someone of rank'," the indictment claims.

Chestnut eventually got a major on the line, and claimed that he had been 'wrongly accused of a crime and eventually released from prison in 2016, and told the major that if he was not going to let him speak either to the Army III Corps Commander of Sergeant Major regarding his back pay, he would 'shoot solders at Ft. Hood.

Ft. Hood, of course, was the scene of a mass shooting in 2009 where 13 soldiers and civilian personnel were killed.

Chestnut was arrested by federal agents two days after making his ill-advised phone call and remains held without bail.


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