Ft. Hood suspect charged with murder

Ft. Hood suspect charged with murder

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Published on November 12th, 2009, 2:07 pm
Rift: News

This psychiatrist who has been recovering from his wounds after a shooting rampage at Fort Hood is being formally charged with 13 counts of murder.

Hopefully, justice will be properly served in this case, at least according to the way the military views justice. But what interests me most about this story is the investigation into the precursors to the shooting spree.

By all accounts that I've heard, this wheels on this guy's little red wagon were coming off for years. His supervisors were worried about his mental stability -- but no one did ANYTHING about those worries. Other than shuffle him off to someone else's unit. Sound familiar?

This, along with hundreds of other stories from the military over the past several years, indicates a serious problem that NEEDS to be addressed and quickly: a lack of acceptance that mental health is as important as physical health. Particularly in an organization that is dedicated to the business of killing people.

Clearly he will get life in jail, so does that mean military jail or civilian?

Liv wrote:Clearly he will get life in jail, so does that mean military jail or civilian?

Since he's being charged under military law, I expect he'll be executed if found guilty.

One of the A.P. stories say they rarely execute.....

Liv wrote:One of the A.P. stories say they rarely execute.....

I wouldn't know about that. I do know that they do give out the death penalty. If this case doesn't result in one, I'll be very surprised. But speaking philosophically... regardless of the sentence, I think he'll spend the rest of his life in custody, regardless of how that life ends.

NPR has more details on this shooter. There will be a lot of hand-wringing over who knew what about this guy and why they allowed him to carry on as an inferior, even dangerous psychiatrist.

But of course, the really big question about this is... does this indicate that there are serious flaws in the military health care system? And if so, how many other professionals are in the system right now who are being allowed to provide sub-standard, even dangerous care to the people on duty?

Makes you wonder what are the "signs".... everyone is referring to?