Army post reviews security after veterans’ clinic shootings

By Russell Contreras and Seth Robbins 

Four months after security was revamped at Fort Bliss, the sprawling West Texas Army post is ramping up protection anew following a shooting at a veterans’ clinic in which a former worker killed a psychologist then committed suicide.

Fort Bliss increased random vehicle searches and checks of proper registration Wednesday, one day after the attack, post spokesman Lt. Col. Lee Peters said.

Officials have not released a possible motive for the shooting or said how the gunman – an Army veteran and former clerk at the clinic – sneaked a .380-caliber handgun through security checkpoints. They said security measures at the clinic and on the rest of the post would be reviewed for possible changes. The clinic reopens Friday.

Even with the new checks, several gates at Fort Bliss are open to civilians, who need just a driver’s license or other government identification to access the post.

Charlie Castillo, a 62-year-old plumber, said he has worked as a contractor at Fort Bliss and at Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 people were fatally shot and more than 30 injured in 2009 in the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in U.S. history.

He said he found the security measures at Fort Hood to be much stricter, with vehicle searches and sweeps of his tools.

“I don’t see that happening here,” he said from a nearby Veterans of Foreign Wars post in El Paso. “But Fort Bliss has always been an open base.”

The renewed questions about Fort Bliss security emerged after 48-year-old Jerry Serrato entered the El Paso Veterans Affairs Health Care System clinic on Tuesday and killed Dr. Timothy Fjordbak before killing himself.

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