Soldier gets 15 months after accidentally firing RPG into another soldier

Plea deal gets soldier 15 months after he killed comrade in ‘inexcusable’ error
May 1, 2013
ADAM ASHTON
Tacoma News Tribune

Somehow the punishment doesn’t feel like enough for the fellow soldier who took their son’s life.

What’s 15 months in jail compared to a lifetime without Neil Turner?

Leland Turner and Charlotte Cox-Turner of Tacoma are weighing that question now that they’ve returned from a court-martial in Texas where a soldier pleaded guilty to killing their son.

Spc. Francisco Perez accidentally triggered a shoulder-fired rocket launcher at Pfc. Neil Turner inside the walls of their headquarters in Afghanistan last year. The explosive pierced Turner’s chest but did not explode.

“I’ll never understand what was going through (Perez’s) brain,” Cox-Turner said in an interview with The News Tribune on Tuesday.

Turner, 21, was the oldest of four brothers and a Lincoln High School graduate. He was serving on his first combat deployment with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division out of Fort Bliss, Texas.

Perez’s carelessness appeared so blatant that an Army judge at Fort Bliss wanted to sentence him Friday to 31 months in jail – near the high end of the maximum penalty for negligent homicide under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Perez, however, had a plea agreement that capped his sentence at 15 months.
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