Fort Carson Soldier Died From Self-Inflicted Gunshots After Chase; Police Believed the Iraq Veteran Was Suspect in Multiple Robberies

Soldier Shot Himself During Police Chase

by Ryan Maye Handy
The Gazette, Sept. 21, 2012

Benjamin David Corson, the AWOL Fort Carson soldier who fled from police on Wednesday and crashed his pickup, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Colorado Springs police said.

Previous reports said that Corson, 27, had sustained life-threatening injuries in the incident and died later. His pickup truck jumped a curb and crashed violently as he fled from pursuing police officers. He was wanted in connection with three mid-September robberies.

Corson was a private with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, and was assigned to armament repair at Fort Carson from March 2010 until this year. He had been in the Army since 2008, and served one tour in Iraq, from March 2010 to March 2011.

Court records show a divorce from his wife was finalized Sept. 4.

Colorado Springs police surrounded Corson’s apartment Wednesday, preparing to make an arrest, when Corson noticed them and fled, taking his cat with him. The cat survived and was claimed later Wednesday by a family member.

Read this story at its source:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/police-144933-fort-died.html

HERO TO ZERO: Under Felony Threat, Wounded Soldiers Caught Abusing Drugs Accepting Deals Forfeiting All

Under pressure to quickly dispose of cases involving injured (non-deployable) soldiers caught abusing drugs and alcohol, Fort Carson’s, BGen. James H. Doty, approved the administrative discharge of dozens of injured soldiers serving under his command during his year-long tenure as acting base commander from 2010-2011. Some observers have indicated the Army is actively targeting wounded troops struggling with substance abuse incidents (and other minor UCMJ violations) as a means to keep deployment readiness high and avoid steep costs associated with paying for long-term medical care and benefits. (DoD)

Fort Carson Policy Targeted Troubled, Wounded Soldiers

Afraid of losing status among comrades and their careers, thousands of soldiers sooth physical and psychiatric injuries by using drugs and alcohol. For those caught, commanders threaten courts-martial and felony conviction. Most soldiers cave to pressure to accept administrative discharge deals offered by military lawyers. Such deals require forfeiture of all medical compensation, loss of VA benefits, and include a service record marked with permanent stamp of dishonor.

by Bill Murphy Jr.
Stars and Stripes, Nov. 15, 2011

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Army Cpl. Joshua Smith saw the orange glow against the South Carolina night sky long before he reached his sister’s apartment complex. The fire in the back buildings was intense. People stood in shock, watching the blaze.

Smith leapt from his rental car and vaulted a five-foot brick wall, yelling at onlookers to call for help. He grabbed an exercise weight someone had left in the yard, threw it through a sliding glass door and burst into the burning building.

Army Cpl. Joshua Smith smashed through a glass patio door and rescued a family from a burning apartment. He received The Soldiers Medal for heroism. In Iraq, he earned an Army Commendation Medal for combat valor. But when he began to abuse drugs and alcohol to cope with symptoms of PTSD, he was quickly disposed of by his Army commanders via an administrative discharge in lieu of court-martial. (DoD)

He shepherded a mother and her 16-month-old daughter to safety, then turned his attention to the other apartments, kicking down doors, running room to room, making sure no one else was trapped.

By the time he emerged, firefighters had arrived. The local TV news hailed the 22-year-old infantryman — home on leave after a tour in Iraq before transferring to Fort Carson, Colo. — whose quick action saved lives.

“It was easy,” Smith said later. “Nobody was shooting at me.”

Sixteen months later, in November 2010, the acting commander at Fort Carson, Brig. Gen. James H. Doty, pinned the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest award for noncombat heroism, to Smith’s chest.

It was the young soldier’s second valor medal in three years in the military, after an Army Commendation Medal with valor device that he’d been awarded for his combat service.

For all his heroics, however, Smith’s life was falling apart.

He was headed for a medical discharge he didn’t really want, due to knee and back injuries. He was in a disastrous marriage, drinking too much, trying to hide the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Fort Carson doctors checked him into a mental health facility for several days in January.

Then, just three months after the Soldier’s Medal ceremony, Smith came up positive for cocaine use in a random drug test.

In our current medical understanding, both PTSD and substance use disorders (SUD) are illnesses … and need to be understood as medical conditions.

— Lisa M. Najavits, professor of psychiatry, Boston University and author of “Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse”

The usual course of action in the Army is to punish soldiers who test positive for drugs locally and to begin a process that can — but doesn’t always — lead to an administrative discharge from the military.

At Fort Carson, military lawyers had devised a different plan to quickly get rid of wounded soldiers who got in trouble.

Smith’s commanders in the rear detachment of the 2-8 Infantry Regiment, who hadn’t served with him in Iraq, took steps to court-martial him. The criminal charge they levied against him, use of a controlled substance, carried the possibility of jail time, a punitive discharge and a civilian felony record.

Smith and his defense lawyers were shocked.

Then the prosecutors offered him a quick way out:

If he would request an immediate discharge under a legal procedure known as a Chapter 10 — without his medical review, military medical care and potential medical retirement pay or disability severance pay — they would recommend that Doty approve it.

The prosecutors even offered to recommend that Smith receive an honorable discharge (albeit one marked on his paperwork as “in lieu of court-martial”), an almost unheard-of outcome.

Chapter 10 discharges are almost always characterized as “other-than-honorable.”

Read the rest of this in-depth investigative report:

http://www.stripes.com/critics-fort-carson-policy-targeted-troubled-wounded-soldiers-1.160871

Cop on Domestic Violence Call Acted “Reasonably” in Fatal Shooting of JBLM Army Medic, Tacoma Police Say

Army Sergeant From Chicago Fatally Shot by Tacoma Police

by Carlos Sadovi
Chicago Tribune, Sept. 2, 2012

A U.S. Army medic from Chicago who had been deployed twice to Iraq was fatally shot by Tacoma, Wash., police who were responding to a domestic violence call on Friday.’

Sgt. Prince Gavin was killed Aug. 31, 2012, after he was shot to death by a Tacoma, Wash., policeman who confronted Gavin during a domestic violence call outside Gavin’s ex-girlfriend’s home, Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell said. Police recovered a .45 caliber handgun at the scene, but it is unclear if Gavin pointed the weapon at the officer who shot him. The officer involved has not been named and has been placed on administrative leave during the investigation. It was the second time the officer had been involved in a shooting. Gavin had twice deployed to Iraq and was days away from a transfer Fort Carson. (DoD)

Sgt. Prince Gavin, originally of Chicago, had been stationed at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord but was in the process of being transferred to Fort Carson, Colo., at the time of his death, said his mother LaSandra Lartheridge. He was to report to Fort Carson on Sept. 10, said his mother.

Gavin was in the process of moving when police received a domestic violence call and found him with a gun when they arrived, said Lartheridge. His mother said Gavin was licensed to have and carry weapons and kept them for protection.

“The thing that I heard was that he and his ex-girlfriend got into it and he went to her house, the police were there and they said something to him,” said Lartheridge.

She said police shot twice, hitting him once in the chest.

“I know nothing except that my son was killed. I do know that my son would not have pointed the gun at a police officer,” said Lartheridge. “I want justice for my son because my son was a good person. (The officer) did not have to be so aggressive and kill my son.”

Read the rest of this story:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-02/news/chi-army-sergeant-from-chicago-fatally-shot-by-tacoma-police-20120902_1_police-officer-army-sergeant-gavin