Wounded Iraq Veteran Death Video Shot By Laughing Deputies

Sheriff’s deputies laughed at and filmed Army veteran as he died in a jail cell
Military Times
By: Kyle Rempfer
1 hour ago

The veteran, 31-year-old Bryan Perry, served in the Iraq War, was honorably discharged and received a Purple Heart, his lawyer told local media outlets. Perry’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Clackamas County.

An Oregon county sheriff’s office has condemned the actions of three of its deputies who filmed and laughed at an Army veteran as he died of a drug overdose in a padded jail cell.

The veteran, 31-year-old Bryan Perry, served in the Iraq War, was honorably discharged and received a Purple Heart, his lawyer told local media outlets. Perry’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Clackamas County.

Two videos were filmed on the deputies’ cell phones in November 2016. In them, viewers can hear the jailers laughing at a man as he flails around in agony.

“We should go show this to his girlfriend and be like, ‘You love this?’ ” one of the deputies said on the recording.

Perry and his girlfriend were arrested together. Prior to the girlfriend being escorted to a separate holding tank for women, she yelled, “I love you, Bryan.”
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The Oregonian
Published on Oct 4, 2018
Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts released video that shows employees making callous comments, now the subject of a federal lawsuit, about an inmate suffering symptoms of drug use. The sheriff condemned the laughter and comments as "inappropriate" and said they "do not conform to our professional standards."

VA pays out $200 million nationally for veterans' wrongful deaths

Over 10 years, VA pays out $200 million nationally for veterans' wrongful deaths
The Center for Investigative Reporting
BY AARON GLANTZ
April 3, 2014

An Iraq War veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder and a history of drug dependency is found dead on the floor of his room at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in West Los Angeles after doctors give him a 30-day supply of the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam and a 15-day supply of methadone.

At the VA in San Diego, an intern fails to remove a central-line catheter in a hospitalized veteran, causing his immediate death.

In San Francisco, a Vietnam veteran is admitted to the VA with a special notation that he is prone to falling. Hospital staff regularly leave him unattended, and the veteran falls five times over two weeks, injuring his head, finger, ribs and left knee. After each fall, VA doctors prescribe escalating doses of narcotic painkillers until he overdoses and is moved to hospice care.

These are some of the deaths that resulted in more than $200 million in wrongful death payments by the Department of Veterans Affairs in the decade after 9/11, according to VA data obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting.

In that time, CIR found the agency made wrongful death payments to nearly 1,000 grieving families, including 59 in California, ranging from decorated Iraq War veterans who shot or hanged themselves after being turned away from mental health treatment, to Vietnam veterans whose cancerous tumors were identified but allowed to grow, to missed diagnoses, botched surgeries and fatal neglect of elderly veterans. Two of the cases involved patients at the Fresno VA hospital.
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