BAMBERG, Germany — The allegations against Sgt. John M. Russell, accused of fatally shooting five servicemembers in Iraq this week, have shocked his family and left his home base community reeling.

Russell, 44, of Bamberg’s 54th Engineer Battalion, has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in the incident Monday at a combat stress control center at Camp Liberty, Iraq.

“This is a tragedy,” Lt. Col. Gary Rosenberg, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Bamberg, said following a town hall meeting Wednesday. “Now, we are just seeing what we can do as a community for all those who were involved in this tragedy.”

At any given time, some 50 percent of the garrison is deployed, Rosenberg said, so it is always stressful anytime something happens downrange. Right now, the garrison’s main concern is for the victims and their families and providing assistance to the affected personnel, he said.

Chaplains and licensed mental health professionals are available to community members, according to Douglas DeMaio, a garrison spokesman.

Russell’s wife, who has not been identified, is not willing to talk to the media, according to Lt. Col. Joseph Breasseale, V Corps spokesman.

“Ms. Russell does not currently have any desire to engage with the media,” he said. “Right now she simply wishes that the public, to include the media, respect her request for privacy.”

Breasseale did not say whether Russell’s wife lives in Bamberg.

In Russell’s hometown of Sherman, Texas, John Michael Russell II, 20, described his father as “a great guy, loving and caring.”

In an interview with the Herald Democrat, he said he was shocked his father would do something like this.

“This is just so surreal right now,” John Russell II said.

He told the paper the family is struggling to come to grips with what happened.

Sgt. Russell’s father, Wilburn, told KXII Channel 12 CBS news that there were a few officers in his son’s unit who wanted to get rid of him.

“He only had six weeks to go to finish his third tour of duty. I believe the officers decided they want him out,” Wilburn Russell said.

“We didn’t expect anything like this. We thought he was the most stable guy in the world.”

Criminal Investigation Command officials in the United States would not say where Russell was being held, or if he would be transferred out of Iraq.

“CID Special Agents immediately responded to the incident and along with military police took the suspected shooter into custody,” CID spokesman Chris Grey said in an e-mail.