PTSD on Trial" Marine sniper for shooting a Deputy

Former Marine who shot deputy tormented, his ex says
Tampa Bay Times
Jessica Vander Velde
Times Staff Writer
Sunday, December 8, 2013

TAMPA — Matthew Buendia was a trained U.S. Marine Corps sniper. If he had wanted to kill the Hillsborough sheriff's deputy he shot at, he could have, his ex-girlfriend recently testified.

Jessica Gipson figured he was trying to commit suicide. She says that just before Buendia fired more than a dozen times at Hillsborough Deputy Lyonelle De Veaux on Sept. 30, 2011, he swallowed a handful of pills.

Gipson saw Buendia draw his gun and fire at close-range. Maybe the 24-year-old man wanted the deputy to shoot back, she thought.

"At this point, I don't know what his intentions were," Gipson testified three weeks ago.

Gipson's recent testimony provides new details about the troubled ex-Marine, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and at one point was taking 17 pills a day prescribed by U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs doctors.

This is the defense's approach as they head toward trial in March. No one is denying Buendia fired the shots. But Tampa defense attorney Mark O'Brien is arguing the young man served his country and came back from three Middle East deployments broken.

Without warning, he would become mean and aggressive, Gipson testified. Sometimes his face would change, as he'd fly into "one of these moods," she said.

Buendia was frustrated with the VA doctors, who he thought were not communicating with one another. He self-medicated with marijuana, Gipson said, which helped him eat and sleep.

He carried a seat belt cutter in his car — a response to seeing some friends burned alive in a vehicle while deployed abroad.
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