Criminal investigation a red flag for Fort Campbell suicides

Criminal investigation a red flag for Fort Campbell suicides
In an honor-driven environment, even the perception of wrongdoing can become a deadly scenario
The Leaf Chronicle
Phillip Grey
Jul. 15, 2013

CLARKSVILLE, TENN. — A review of 17 Fort Campbell suicide investigation reports showed no simple solution, no single factor that ties the cases together. However, there are clusters of incident triggers – a significant one being suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.

Several of Fort Campbell’s suicides were predominantly the result of a soldier being under investigation, either by military or civil authorities, for alleged criminal behavior, according to an analysis of the reports by The Leaf-Chronicle and news partner WSMV-TV, Channel 4 in Nashville.

Despite that the military knows how dangerous that situation is as a trigger for suicide, commanders and units of the soldiers were unable to prevent their deaths. In at least one case, they took no action despite being warned of the danger by the commanding general of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command.

In all three cases, the deaths were determined to be in the line of duty, due to the assessment that they acted impulsively under duress while not of sound mind.

This is not based solely on the opinion of investigators but a principle that applies in nearly every investigation of Army suicide.

AR 600-8-4, B-10, Rule 10 reads, “The law presumes that a mentally sound person will not commit suicide (or make a bona fide attempt to commit suicide). This presumption prevails until overcome by substantial evidence and a great weight of the evidence that supports any different conclusion.”

The final crash of a solid career came in July 2011 when the soldier was brought into an Orlando, Fla., hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Having been listed DFR, his death was one of the few not determined to be “line of duty.”
read more here