Munley with country musician Dierks Bentley. (AFP file picture)

Texas, Nov. 7: The police officer who brought down gunman Nidal Malik Hasan after he went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood army base was on the way to have her car repaired when she responded to a police radio report of gunfire at the centre, the authorities have said.

As she pulled up to the centre, the officer, Sergeant Kimberly Denise Munley, spotted the gunman, later identified as Hasan, brandishing a pistol and chasing a wounded soldier outside the building, said Chuck Medley, the director of emergency services at the base.

Munley — a woman with a fierce love of hunting, surfing and other outdoor sports — bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran towards him, continuing to fire, and both she and Hasan went down with several bullet wounds, Medley said.

Whether Munley was solely responsible for taking down Hasan or whether he was also hit by gunfire from her partner is unclear, but she was the first to fire at him, the authorities said.

Munley, 34, is an expert in firearms and a member of the SWAT team for the civilian police department on the base, officials said.

Medley said she had received specific training in a tactic called active shooter protocol, which was intended for this kind of situation.

“She’s absolutely a hero,” he said. “She had the training; she knew what to do. And she had the courage to do it — by doing it she saved countless people’s lives.”

The original emergency 911 call came in at 1.23pm, and five minutes later Munley had already shot the gunman.

Lt Gen. Robert W. Cone, the post commander, praised Munley for reacting so swiftly and without hesitation. “It was an amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.

Munley began her career as a police officer in the beachside town of Wrightsville, Noth Carolina, after graduating from high school in nearby Wilmington. She quickly earned a reputation for fearlessness, despite her stature. (She stands 5ft 4in.)

Her partner in Wrightsville, investigator Shaun Appler, recalled how Munley had saved him one night when she wrestled a large man off him after the man had pinned him down and was trying to take his gun. She earned the nickname Mighty Mouse for that, he said. “She’s a ball of fire,” Appler said. “She’s a real good cop.”

In facing down the gunman at Fort Hood, Munley was wounded in each thigh and her right wrist. The base’s fire chief applied tourniquets to stop her bleeding, and she was taken to an undisclosed hospital.

Her friends and relatives who spoke to her on Friday said she was recovering and in good spirits. Munley, who has two children, joined the police force on the sprawling base in January 2008 after several years in the army, most of them at Fort Hood.

It was there she met her future husband, Matthew Munley, a member of the Special Forces. The couple is in the process of selling their house and moving back to North Carolina, where her husband has been assigned to Fort Bragg, family members said.