Squads attacking everyone after kill order on werebeast

A wereape entered the map and tried to attack my fortress but was caught in a cage trap. At this point, it shape shifted into a dwarf. I put the cage in my target practice pit, then ordered my archer squads to kill the dwarf. After it was killed, they proceeded to attack eachother and anyone in in sight. I tried to move designate the squads, and also disbanding them, but nothing helps. They keep running around killing anything in sight. Not the kind of FUN I was looking for...

This must clearly be a glitch, or is there a reasonable explanation? Is there a DFHack command or similar to tell everyone to calm down?

Solution 1:

This is one of the most common causes of a loyalty cascade. Basically the problem is that, by ruthlessly murdering one of your own (a poor, helpless peasant, just minding his own business!), some of your militia members have been declared enemies of your fortress faction. The other militia members are now trying to kill them, and they're defending themselves. Basically your fortress has descended into civil war over the callous treatment of this prisoner.

It's definitely a glitch. The real glitch is the fact that everyone forgets this dwarf is a werecreature as soon as they shift back into dwarven form. The DFHack command fix/loyaltycascade is supposed to fix it once the civil war has started.