Afghanistan civilian shootings linked to Fort Lewis-McChord

Afghanistan shootings are latest trouble linked to Lewis-McChord
By Kim Murphy and Christi Parsons
March 12, 2012, 10:34 a.m.
Reporting from Seattle and Washington, D.C.—


The staff sergeant who turned himself in after the recent shooting deaths of 16 Afghan civilians was based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a sprawling suburban Army facility south of Tacoma, Wash. It's the biggest military base on the West Coast — and one of the most troubled in the Army.

Lewis-McChord, a major staging area for troops going to and from Iraq and Afghanistan, has been plagued over the last two years by a wave of suicides, killings and domestic violence. It was also the scene of the high-profile courts martial of a “kill team” of soldiers on charges of murdering Afghan civilians in Kandahar province for sport.

A U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times that the serviceman now in custody in the latest shootings is a 38-year-old father of two who has spent 11 years in the Army.

He is a veteran of three tours of duty in Iraq and was on his first deployment to Afghanistan, serving as security for special forces in the Kandahar region.

“The individual was augmenting [special operations forces] personnel and his primary responsibility was force protection at the combat outpost," a senior defense official said.

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