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Sunday, November 23, 2008
NYT article about Army domestic abuse case
Today's New York Times includes an article (here's a link) suggesting an inadequate response by the Army to a soldier battering his wife at San Angeleno, Texas. The article ran on the front page of the National section. It could produce further reverberations.
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6 comments:
I assume the TJAG will be making inquiries on Monday. The local prosecutor also does not deserve any medals.
As a strong opponent of anonymous posting, I'm sorry to have to say that I'm the culprit on the last post. My sole excuse is that I'm on a train and my finger slipped. (It's true.)
A fine example of reverse "command influence."
NYT: "ZOMG! The Iraq Vets are evil and violent just like when our editors were protesting Vietnam!"
As for the Army, it is possible she started the fight, or just as likely the Army bobbled the case.
Before I went to law school, I was a legal officer and we had a Marine jailed or a day or two out in town for beating his wife. Because the locals were handling the abuse allegation (where he would have gotten a diversion program as I recall), the JAGMAN required us to get CG approval to give the marine NJP for the same act. So I told my CO that we should just NJP him for being UA while in jail. He refused and told me to seek CG approval to NJP him for assault. The CG declined permission. So we proceeded, a few weeks after the fact, with an NJP for UA. It took multiple (and I mean multiple) meetings with my CO to get him not to say "I know I'm not allowed to NJP you for hitting your wife, but we both know what this punishment is really for."
The article states that Renteria was stationed at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo TX when the abuse occurred. I wonder whether the case would have been handled differently had he been on an Army post, with MPs responding to the complaint.
On occasion, I've seen cases handled poorly when the events took place on one installation and the responsibility for prosecution was transferred to another. I've also seen the ball dropped in interservice cases, although the issue here seems to be more between the civilian authorities and the Army than between the Air Force and Army.
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