Responding to Mass Murders - AAR

[Blacksmith]

I have had the rather poor fortune to know or meet people through the course of my life who have unwisely to resolve their problems and issues in life with violence. This has never worked in their favor. This thread will be an examination of two tragic events that I lived through or observed, one very recently resolved. The guilty have already met their fates and the legalities have been finalized. There are appeals for one; but if there is justice the appeals will end in failure.

This thread is not a WWYD nor is it a story about combat as I don't discuss combat generally. It is also not a work of fiction either. Instead what I will do is lead you through events step by step that happened and my reactions and actions in regard to them. Some of my thought processes as well. Feel free to point out my errors. I know what most of them are but I may have missed a few. The first will be quite detailed because as a witness on the stand I had to keep going over it, and over it.

Many of the actions I took were at best improper, others were outright foolish. Coming out on the other side of a difficult situation alive and well is a win; but it can be an ugly win. Still I lived and go on living as I have always been quite lucky. Someday I am certain my luck will run out. Of course I have the learning curve thing working in my favor too, hopefully.

Our story begin here.....

I am alone laying naked in my bed in my room on a compound in Iraq located on a larger Iraqi military installation. The base is quite large, we are about three miles from the gate, perhaps a mile from the boundary wall. My body armor is hanging on my rack with all my toting gear and M9 on it and my M4 is leaning against the bed next to my pillow in condition one, barrel down. The building is typical shitty Iraqi construction of cheap cinder blocks smeared with spackle.

I hear a series of shots coming from what I think is inside the building. I sit up in bed, grab my rifle, stand up and chamber a round.

I have already made several mistakes........More To Follow....

[Blacksmith]

The first mistake I made was in standing/ sitting up. When you suspect bullets are flying through a cheaply built building standing up just makes it more likely for you to get hit by a stray round or shrapnel. I should have got down on the floor with my rifle and pointed it at the door until the the gunfire stopped (if it stopped quickly).

The second mistake I made was in "chambering a round". Remember I said the weapon was in condition one already. All that happened was that a round went flying out, wasted. I would like to blame this on being drowsy and then suddenly moving into reactive mode. However, I have actually done this other times in combat too and have tried to break myself of the habit and have been unable to break myself of it. A pressure check is all that is needed but controlling the first adrenaline rush is difficult.

A third mistake could be going to sleep in the buff. However that is how I sleep best and given my job I needed lots of sleep when I could get it.

To continue

The shootings stops and I don't hear anything for about 15 seconds. Then I hear doors opening in the hallway. People talking asking what the hell happened and what not. I have been putting on some PT shorts and open my door a crack while standing well back from it (opens inward) and peek up and down the hallway and see some sleepy eyed people wandering around with their weapons. One of my team mates in the room next to me is doing the same thing I am except with his M9.

I step out into the hallway myself to get a better look around and still do not see any threats. Everyone has weapons at the low ready. Suddenly the exterior door opens and another team mate walks into the hallway. Myself and several others shout to secure the door and put a guard on it.

He asks us; "What is going on?"

I just made a whole bunch more mistakes.

[Blacksmith]

There are several problems with my confused response.

Some of these I attribute to my tour before last where going outside the wire was only a couple of steps from the building. We would often get probed or attacked by someone just wanting to expend some ammo or mess with us. I would say five times out of eight when we heard firing it turned out to be nothing. I was hoping that this would be nothing too. I suspected possible enemy action whereby an Iraqi soldier had snuck into the compound and attacked the training team with his AK. This was/is becoming an increasing problem in theater. The lack of shooting now would indicate that the threat had been dealt with. Even though I am looking for threats I was not being proactive enough towards addressing an existing threat by wishing it away.

I should have ordered the door secured as soon as I walked into the hallway. There was definitely an "oh shit" moment when the door opened.

The next mistake I had made was that I did not put on my armor with all my kit on. This would have taken all of 20 seconds. I would have had armor, extra magazines, a radio and a bunch of other useful stuff. Instead I have gym shorts, my M4 and a light coat of oil. Not even flip-flops. If you have armor, use it. I keep a set of 3a by the bed at home even now. This won't stop rifle rounds but it will stop everything else. It also only takes five seconds to put on at worst. Weighs a lot less too.

Moving on

I realized that the firing must have come from farther into the building. The building has a central corridor with five wings. You can see down the central corridor to the intersections of the wings. I moved down to the central corridor and sliced the pie until I could see all the way down it.

As if the night could not get any stranger there was an NCO down at the next wing intersection holding a battle axe and saying that we had wounded "down here". He then ran the other direction towards the aid station. I still had my rifle pointed down the corridor and my team mate had pulled up beside me. I told him the shots were coming from "down there".

He asked if we should go check it out.

I said "yeah".

He ran down the corridor with his M9. I covered him.

That is correct. More poor decisions and actions.

[Blacksmith]

In this particular case it was my duty to respond. However I don't think anyone would NOT respond to shots fired in their home to put it in perspective. So responding and moving towards the sound of the guns was not a mistake in my case. I suppose there are some who hid out in their rooms and waited for whatever it was to be over. That has never been in my nature. Everyone friendly on the compound knew who I was too. There was almost no chance of getting me mixed up with an enemy combatant.

However I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing by SOP which is pretty awful. If you have a plan to defend your home with your spouse or kids or whatever, changing it on the fly is not a great idea. They will react in unpredictable ways too that. We had been neglectful as a unit by not practicing enough for such scenarios as this. So if you have a plan to defend your home with weapons practice it. Then practice for stuff that will never happen; because it just might.

Covering someone from a corner while they are moving down a hallway is a terribly easy way to inflict fratricide. Don't ever do that. I won't go into proper techniques here but if someone had jumped out and I had engaged them I could have easily hit my team mate when he reacted too. I well out ranked him too and knew the proper way (and knew that he did not) so I should have stopped him and then had us do it right.

He was not wearing his armor either and I should have stopped and had us both put it on. I should have made him get his rifle too. Lots of things I should have done. When in a difficult situation always take time to evaluate what is going on if you have the time.

I like to blame my poor decision making on the fact that I was still a little groggy and that I was not at all expecting contact that night at all. It was a Thursday night too which is historically a down day for the Jihad. When I am on patrol or whatever I am expecting contact and I think I do much better. I certainly could not be doing much worse than I am that night.

But there is more of course....

When he gets to the corner he looks around and runs down it. This puts me in panic mode a little so I follow after him quickly as I can with rifle in the ready position. When I get down there he is standing in front of a room. I see a guy sitting on the floor with his back against the wall of the hallway and one of the terps standing over him kind of like he is checking him for wounds. There is some heavy discharge in the air in front of one of the rooms. No one else is around.

I run down the corridor to try to ascertain what is happening. When I get there I ask the guy on the ground (who I recognize as an RTO) what is going on. He does not answer.

The terp answers instead and says "He killed them".

I ask "Killed who?" and get told to look in the room. I look in through the doorway and see another RTO stretched out on the floor looking very dead. My team mate pipes up with the same response. That is when I realize that the terp is holding the RTO down. I still don't know what is going on but I point my M4 at the RTO just in case. He starts to struggle and begs the terp to keep me from killing him.

Less than 90 seconds has passed from the time I had heard shots. I started to get the feeling for how bad that night was going to really suck.

I am going to take a rest now. More later.

[Blacksmith]

I missed the terp holding him down because he was not really struggling until I pointed my rifle at him. After that he started trying to get away and then I noticed it.

For me there is a legal responsibility not unlike a police officer that if I suspect someone of committing a crime than I am required to read them their rights before I ask any questions. This is not common practice for me to investigate crimes but I have done it before; including the reading of rights. To not do so normally makes a suspect statements inadmissible. I was still having a hard to adjusting to the idea that one of our own had killed some of our own. I certainly did not have a rights card tucked in my PT shorts. In any case he was not talking much.

So back to the story. I am not going to go over every action I took after this point as they are not all relevant. If anyone has a question feel free to ask.

I left my team mate to cover him while I went in the room. I checked vitals and found two dead soldiers and one in very bad shape and dying. I started yelling for medics that had still not arrived yet, although more people were showing up and helping the wounded guy. I saw what was essentially an ambush. He had run into the room shot three unarmed and unprepared people and ran back out again. I came back out and asked why he had done it. He told me he did it because he thought that they were going to kill him. Given what I had just seen this did not make much sense.

I was pretty mad and internally debated killing him.

I considered it not based on whether he was a threat but to how much I personally thought he deserved to die. I very likely could have gotten away with it too. I doubt anyone would have tried overly hard to prosecute me for shooting an obvious threat when he "tried to grab a weapon". That however was not the right answer as I prefer to live by rule of law. I have never been in favor of extra-judicial killings.

Things were starting to get emotional in the hallway for new arrivals. One of the dead was really well liked.

I knew that several things needed to happen at once. We needed a medic for the wounded guy. I had to secure the killer or someone else was going to kill him. I needed to collect evidence as quickly as possible before the scene was contaminated with everyone coming and going and I needed to let as few people in the area as possible. I needed to let the camp commander (who was also my boss) know what was happening. Lots and lots of stuff I needed to do. Sure would have been helpful to have my kit, especially the radio and IFAK. But no; M4, light coat of oil, PT shorts.

[Blacksmith]

Things got pretty emotional for a while. I was not completely surprised but I was a little. I have found that death in combat is much more easily accepted than death unexpected. The people that seemed most affected to me were those who had never been in combat before, never been around dead bodies before and were shocked by the crime. They were still trained soldiers (and some contractors) however so they just required a little bit of reassurance to act properly.

In a difficult situation when people are dead and dying even trained soldiers will have issues occasionally so you should expect some serious issues out of anyone/ everyone you are with in that type situation. The more shocking the scenario the harder it will be to deal with. In the military it helps a lot to have a chain of command provided the leader is not paralyzed. If the leader is ineffective the unit either fails or someone else steps up and fills the role.

I would not recommend taking any of the investigative steps I took or most of the other things LE type things I did so I am going to omit them here. I did secure the scene and secure the prisoner until someone else arrived to take over and then we moved the prisoner to a more secure area and called a MEDVAC. I suggested to stand down the camp to a lower level as there were lots of people running around with guns looking for threats that did not exist. At that point I went back to my room and put a uniform on.

I went through a big emotional draw down once I was behind closed doors and began to allow myself to relax a little. I knew there was a lot to do that night but I figured the hard part was over. Then a report came out over the radio. The building was on fire.

[Blacksmith]

There had been some confusion in the room where the murders took place because the "gun smoke" was getting worse. What had happened was that the killer had used tracer rounds and the rounds had gone through the wall and lodged in the armor of the soldier in the room next door (he was not wearing it and was not there when this happened). They had smoldered then set his bed aflame. The room had gotten consumed then we opened the door to his room it went out of control.

I went out into the hallway and the smoke was already at waist level. I was pretty mad again and may have even invented some new profanity. Some of the PSD down the hall asked me how bad the fire was. I told them it was time to evacuate and hope the Iraqi's had a fire truck. That is when they mentioned that they had cases of ammo and grenades as well as all their crew served weapons and .50 sniper rifles in their room oh and their soldiers were pulling security. So we start toting ammo and guns out of the building.

The building was saved but a lot of evidence was damaged during the fire. Luckily I had taken several photos early on that proved helpful to the prosecution.

Aftermath.

This is not your favorite video game so you can't bring dead soldiers back to life. The best you can hope for is justice.

The shooter was convicted and sentenced to life without parole before a court martial. The defense failed to mount a "self-defense" type defense and went with a "whodunit, second shooter" defense. There is more to it than is mentioned in the news reports. There always is.

http://www2.wsav.com/news/2012/jun/13/4 ... r-3967131/

The floor is open to questions and comments.

[RickOShea]

What happened to the soldier that was wounded? Did he make it? Was he able to provide any context (if there is such a thing) as to the actions/reasoning of the shooter?

[Blacksmith]

What happened to the soldier that was wounded? Did he make it? Was he able to provide any context (if there is such a thing) as to the actions/reasoning of the shooter?

The third soldier was extremely lucky. The BN PA was on our camp that night and has load of experience treating trauma. If he had not been there the kid likely would not have made it.

He suffered a head wound, a lung shot and a leg wound. The head wound resulted in him being unable to recall any events of that night and he forgot a bunch of other stuff too, like most of his school training. He walks with a cane; but he walks. He will be disabled for the rest of his life.

In a weird turn of events he has head injury apparently effected the part of his brain that controls negative emotion and he has an amazingly positive outlook on life.

[raptor]

Excellent post and certainly one with many lessons.

[Blacksmith]

I appreciate the sentiment.

I do not know if anyone will benefit from learning from my mistakes but if they can at least some good might come out of that night. Now that the trial is over I do not plan on ever retelling that story again.

[Niblick]

Brother, I consider myself lucky for having heard your story. I know many with similar stories who will not tell. You have helped this community with excellent, first hand information on an awful subject. As an active duty 11b, I know how hard this must be. You, and your guys, are all that I, and my guys, hope to be. Thank you for sharing and for all that you have done to insure that I can at the very least least, write this message from home, with my family in the next room, safely in the USA. Happy birthday US Army, and god bless you blacksmith.

[Tetra Grammaton Cleric]

Well written and well recieved. Thank you Blacksmith.

-

[mystic_1]

Subscribed. I have nothing useful to add, but I too wanted to say thanks.

mystic_1

[Kutter_0311]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I had mentioned once, long ago, that if you intend to defend your home, armor would be sensible. Someone suggested that donning armor took too long, so I question if they had much experience with armor. I know my CIRAS shrugs on in about half a second...

In case of disorder, don armor.

Cheap insurance, when you think about it, and when you have the rest of your kit on the armor, many things are easier to handle.

[Blacksmith]

The armor that we had the time would have taken around 10-20 seconds to put on properly. After the incident I actually timed myself going over, picking it up, putting it on and securing it properly. This is not too long that I could not have done it. Short of one of my family members screaming for their lives I would likely not run into uncertain chaos without it if I have the option. There is simply no sense in it. However, if I believed one of my family was in mortal danger right then I would likely skip it simply because I would not be able to stop myself. In this case I had time to do it and choose not to.



I have received some messages from people asking me how I am dealing with the emotional aftermath. I have had some anxiety. Not about the night but about the possibility that the killer might escape justice. You see, no one actually saw him kill those kids (except the guy who could not recall anything). I knew he did it because he told me he did it. That statement was actually inadmissible at the trial because I had not read him his rights first. Mentioning it in court would have resulted in a mistrial. A different outcome from the jury and I would likely be a mess. So it is a good thing for everyone he got what he deserved.

Emotionally I think I am doing fine. There has only been one really hard moment in the last year or so.

When I was on the witness stand I had to introduce the photos into evidence that I had taken that night. I did not realize that the the families of the victims had never seen the photos before. The photos were displayed on monitors around the courtroom. I think the prosecutor did not tell me this on purpose because he may have been looking for the effect that he got of emotional responses from the family in the gallery. Their response resulted in the panel being removed from the courtroom quickly and lawyer meetings with the judge. The prosecutor is an extremely smart guy so I figure he must have known what was going to happen. I can't fault him for it it because it showed he was willing to do whatever it took to ensure justice was served. Hearing the pain and anguish from the families was actually harder than dealing with that night. Their pain will never go away.



I have dealt with death before, of people dying in combat, friends, neighbors, team mates. It is the price of admission into that world. You do everything that you can to prevent it from happening to yourself and your soldiers and it still happens anyway. In the end none of us gets out alive anyway. I have been luckier than many in that those I have lost have been very few in number. However, I had never seen anything like I saw that night which was completely senseless and useless. Four lives gone or ruined in an instant for no reason. So it is a little harder to take.

[Kutter_0311]

I know the UCMJ is going to be different than civilian Constitutional Law, but in an emergency like that, I'm pretty sure situational assessment questions are admissible. I know I was trained that, if questioning a suspect about a current threat, like an armed robbery or active shooter, where the scene was not yet secured, no rights needed to be read. Questions regarding an imminent threat, like a stashed weapon, other shooters/suspects, booby-traps, etc, are totally good to go. I'm sure the UCMJ will vary a bit, but I'm sure a lot of UCMJ case law is going to be geared toward after-the-fact questioning, as well. At any rate, the guy got about as much taken away from him as can be, so it goes in the 'win' column.

[squinty]

Did the guy ever admit doing it after that statement? Ever accept responsibility, or make any attempt to explain his motives or describe wtf was going on in his head when he did it?

Did he ever express any remorse?

[Blacksmith]

Did the guy ever admit doing it after that statement? Ever accept responsibility, or make any attempt to explain his motives or describe wtf was going on in his head when he did it?

Did he ever express any remorse?

Never again publicly or to my knowledge. After he was zip tied he shut up and refused to talk.

It was very odd not expressing remorse. I even pointed it out later in his presence. When I did that he made sort of fake show of doing do for about five seconds (literally). Then never again.

[squinty]

I remember after Columbine, and a few similar active shooter type deals where the killer "escaped" by suicide, I felt very frustrated that the killers weren't captured alive because I wanted to know WTF they were thinking, and what they had to say for themselves.

I said the same thing after David Cho's little spree in Virginia. "How could he justify his actions? WTF was he thinking?"

So I was kind of curious when they announced Cho had left behind a videotape. At last, I thought, one of these freaks left some account of his actions.

And of course, Cho's tape was just an incoherent word salad, conveying almost no information at all, except to express a sort of general petulance. What could I have been expecting? A good reason? A statement that made sense, when his actions made so little?

The detective who caught and debriefed the Green River killer had a similar experience. He coaxed confessions and disclosures and all sorts of information out of the murderer, but the killer could never give a satisfactory or even coherent answer as to why he committed his crimes.

[Kutter_0311]

"How could he justify his actions? WTF was he thinking?"

Pretty sure you won't find anything too coherent unless you get a good sociopath, but they aren't really the type to let their lives be ended like that. As far as an explanation, well, I have a kind of half assed guess. Lets start with the Three Laws...

1.A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

We all know humans have an aversion to killing other humans. Some training allows the 1st Law to be weakened, such that killing some humans is more acceptable than allowing those humans to kill you or your teammates. Then there is that urge. You know, the urge to shoot stupid people in the face...

At some point, That Urge starts to wear down Rule #1, and you start to fantasize about shooting people in the face when they irritate you.

Then one day, someone irritates you, and you shoot them in the face. Maybe a few more, too, just for old time's sake.

That tipping point, where the hardwired program gets overridden, can equate to a mental break.

They just can't brain after shatter...

[Blacksmith]

I know for a fact that the shooter had never been in combat before. We were in a combat zone and he had been in one of those before but never in actual combat. If he had any extra-curricular activities before or during military service they were never uncovered by the investigators.

Evidence not introduced at the trial but available to both the prosecution and the defense that was slightly illuminating but not conclusive. The shooter was naturalized citizen originally from Honduras and kept a private journal (this is the 20th Century equivalent to a BLOG or Facebook page). He stated in the journal that he believed that the US was a exploitative imperial power. He had planned on leaving military service and going back to Honduras (where he had left when he was 5) and become a "freedom fighter".

I am still not sure what he meant by that however if you recall the US was interfering greatly in Honduran domestic policy in 2009/10 when the rising "Chavez Style" strong man Zelaya was ousted. The US President decided to back him, while some members of the US Congress backed the usurper. The shooter never made any political statements that anyone could recall nor did he ever mention his feelings on this publicly. I don't even know which party he was planning on backing. This was not introduced as motive I think because it would have required him to cooperate by explaining his thoughts. It certainly would not have helped his defense any either.

I do recall prior to the incident I would try to engage him in conversation that was not duty related. He would never really respond to that and kept quiet. At some point I just assumed that he was a just a quiet guy that liked his privacy or was not comfortable talking to people of higher rank than himself. He was definitely a loner however. No one could recall anyone being friends with him.