'Deeply disturbing': Utah leaders react to plans for public execution of Fort Hood shooter

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Utah leaders express concern over livestreaming Nidal Hasan's execution on Dec. 3.
• Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson calls the Pentagon's plan "deeply disturbing."
• Sen. John Curtis warns it risks eroding moral character and asking the secretary of defense to "reconsider."

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah leaders reacted to news of the Pentagon's plans to livestream the firing squad execution of a man accused of a mass shooting at a Texas military base, with Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson calling it "disturbing."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Thursday that the Dec. 3 execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad would be streamed live. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, is accused of killing 13 people and injuring dozens more in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood in Texas.

He is set to become the first person executed by firing squad by the military since 1945, and the first person killed in a legally sanctioned public execution in the United States in 90 years.

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public," Hegseth said. "Because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."

Asked if Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth said: "Don't care. We'll see him on Dec. 3."

"This is deeply disturbing," Henderson wrote in a post responding to the news on Thursday.

U.S. Sen. John Curtis invoked Stoic philosopher Seneca, who wrote of the impact gladiatorial combat had on the moral character of those who viewed the spectacle.

"A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment," the Republican said in a statement. "Secretary Hegseth's plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite. The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent. I urge him to reconsider."

Curtis voted to confirm Hegseth early in Trump's second term, and told KSL later Friday that the question of whether he had any regrets in supporting him was "irrelevant."

"You can't go back in time," he said. "The president was just elected. He had some discretion in who he wanted to fill these positions, so there's some deference to that. There's far more to what the secretary of that department does than just this issue, so I think what you're sensing from me is more of a healthy pushback and more of a sense of I need to speak my mind and hopefully he'll listen."

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox reposted a post by author Tim Carney, who wrote: "Televising the execution is barbaric. It will coarsen the culture."

A spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the senator has previously called for the public execution of the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

"Execute Tyler Robinson," Lee wrote on his personal X account in January. "In public."

The Pentagon's plan to publicly execute Hasan has prompted bipartisan backlash in Washington. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, agreed with Hasan receiving the death penalty, but said streaming the execution is "beyond disgusting."

"Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do," he wrote on X. "It should not be happening in America."

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, agreed, calling public executions "medieval."

"I mean, that's disgusting," he said. "What is he, mimicking ISIS executions?"

Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on whether the Pentagon will follow through with the livestream execution and said, "I'm not going to be watching it."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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