2 dead in apparent murder-suicide at Texas Air Force base

World Today

Military Base-ShootingTwo Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputies, left, stand outside a building near the scene of a shooting at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Friday, April 8, 2016, in San Antonio. (John Davenport/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

An airman shot his commander in an apparent murder-suicide Friday at a U.S. Air Force base in San Antonio, a senior U.S. official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the shooting at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

Two handguns were found near the bodies of the men inside a building that’s used for classrooms and offices, according to Brig. Gen. Robert LaBrutta, who oversees Joint Base San Antonio.

He stressed that the shooting was not an act of terrorism. He declined to identify the two men, saying their families must be notified first.

Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the military’s largest joint base, is the home of Air Force basic training.

The fatal shooting is the latest to occur at a military facility in Texas in the last several years. In the deadliest attack to occur at a U.S. military installation, 13 people were killed and 31 were wounded in 2009 in a mass shooting at Fort Hood.

Story by The Associated Press