Spc. Ivan Lopez, before Fort Hood attack: 'My spiritual peace has gone away.'

Struggling with personal issues after his mother died and describing Army bureaucracy with vulgarities, an increasingly distraught Spc. Ivan Lopez made a decision that proved fatal: He bought a gun, and decided to use it.

On Wednesday, Spc. Lopez, a 34-year-old father and Army truck driver, killed three people and injured 16 before killing himself when confronted by a base policewoman. It was the third major shooting on a US military installation in five years, and the second in the same span at the sprawling base on the scrub brush cusp of Killeen, Texas.

The base has been a major jumping-off point for war-bound soldiers throughout the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lopez bought the .45 caliber Smith & Wesson that he used at the same gun store used by Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan to procure the weapons used in the Nov. 5, 2009, attack where 13 people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

The FBI and the military have given only cursory clues as to how Lopez, who was being treated for depression and anxiety issues, snapped. They say he had argued with the Army about leave benefits, including time off last year to attend his mother’s funeral in his native Puerto Rico. Just before the shooting, there was another argument with a soldier over paperwork for another leave request.

The father of one of the wounded soldiers told a Mississippi TV station that a soldier, presumably Lopez, arrived at Fort Hood’s human resources office to get a leave form. Told to come back the next day, the man left then returned with a gun and opened fire.

The ensuing melee continued in at least two buildings, with Lopez at one point firing at soldiers from a moving vehicle. He killed himself when confronted by a military police officer.

“We believe that the immediate precipitating factor was more likely an escalating argument in his unit area,” Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, the base commander, said Friday.

New information released by Lopez’s friends from his family-only Facebook account describe a darkening arc punctuated by a plaintive notation only days before the shooting: “My spiritual peace … has gone away, I am full of hate,” Lopez wrote under his Facebook alter ego, Ivan Slipknot, describing how “two flacos” stole something from him. “Flaco” has a variety of meanings in Spanish, but is often used to denote “dude.”

It’s not clear from the post whether the robbery was figurative or literal. It’s also far from clear the extent to which the Facebook missives reflect his state of mind, or how, if at all, they play into what happened Wednesday.

Other Facebook posts described “hours of agony” and fear during a convoy in Iraq, vulgarities about Army bureaucracy – specifically his trouble getting a 24-hour leave to attend his mother’s funeral late last year – and a terse exhortation at one point – “plaka, plaka, plaka,” which can be translated as “bang, bang, bang.”

The posts do seem to confirm a state of mind that Army officials have also referred to in the wake of the shooting. “He felt like he wasn’t being treated fairly,” one official told the New York Times. “He wasn’t getting what he felt he should have been entitled to.”

Lopez relocated to Fort Hood from Fort Bliss in February. He had complained about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after his four-month tour in Iraq in 2011, but the Army was still evaluating his claim at the time of the shooting.

A native of a town on the west coast of Puerto Rico, Lopez was a National Guardsman for a decade before joining the Army in 2009. He was twice married, and he had three children.

Army officials said Lopez’ fragile and unstable mental health likely played a role in the shooting.

"We have very strong evidence that he had a medical history that indicates unstable psychiatric or psychological condition," Lt. Gen. Milley said. "We believe that to be a fundamental, underlying cause."