PTSD on Trial:Iraq veteran to go to rehab instead of jail for manslaughter

Judge sentences Iraq veteran to rehab instead of jail for manslaughter
BY Oren Yaniv
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 24th 2010, 4:00 AM

A drunk ex-Marine who killed a beloved dad of five on the FDR is off to rehab instead of jail after a judge spared a "decent human being" and Iraq war veteran.

Brandon Connolly, 33, was facing two to six years behind bars after the Valley Stream, L.I., man earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter and vehicular manslaughter. But the judge was moved by accounts of the personal trainer's service in Bosnia and two tours in Ramadi and Fallujah.

"We're dealing with a reckless act committed by a decent human being," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber said, speaking haltingly. "I don't know what the just sentence is in this case."



Read more: Judge sentences Iraq veteran to rehab instead of jail

Victim in fiery crash arrested hours before for DUI

Victim in fiery crash arrested hours before for DUI
By KOMO Staff SEATAC, Wash. -- A brother, his sister and their good friend were killed when a speeding SUV crashed and caught fire early Wednesday.

Ryan Savage, 30, and his sister Erika Savage, 24, grew up together and were both killed when the Lincoln Navigator crashed about 3:15 a.m.

Just hours before the crash, police in Des Moines had arrested Erika for allegedly driving under the influence and say she was too drunk to even blow into a breathalyzer.
read more here
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/60668582.html

Senior leaders fight rise in alcohol violations

Driving down DUIs: Senior leaders fight rise in alcohol violations
By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, August 5, 2009

For the 52nd Fighter Wing commander at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, even one drunken driving violation by one of his airmen is one too many.

It’s a line repeated often by most commanders, to the point it can sound cliche.

But for Col. Lee Wight, the campaign against drunken driving is deeply personal.

In 1982, while working as a civilian police officer in Norman, Okla., a 16-year-old girl died in his arms after her car was T-boned at an intersection by a drunk driver.

"It sticks in your mind," Wight said. Ever since, "I’ve been kind of waging a war against DUIs."

A spike in drunken driving and other alcohol-related offenses this spring did not go unnoticed. After one DUI and one alcohol-related incident in January, the numbers for both began to creep up: 4 in February, 6 in March and 7 in April. And then in May there were several off-base incidents and serious accidents, some involving alcohol.

Wight and senior leaders across base cracked down, using a mixture of policy, punishment and programs to combat drunken driving and promote responsible choices.

Wight looked into raising the drinking age on base — in Germany it’s legal to consume beer and wine at 16, hard liquor at 18 — but was told he couldn’t legally do that.
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http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=64033

Chicago:Road signs remember drunk driver's victims

Road signs remember drunken drivers' victims
A state memorial-marker program that took effect in January allows relatives of those killed by DUI drivers to request that signs be posted at sites of fatal crashes.
Roadside tributes Video
Busy high school senior never made it home from visit to grandmother, stop at mall

Bus driver in deadly crash arrested

Bus driver in deadly crash arrested
By Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
1:14 PM PDT, October 6, 2008
SACRAMENTO -- Authorities arrested a bus driver on suspicion of drunk driving early today in the aftermath of a horrific crash on a rural Colusa County roadway that left eight casino-bound passengers dead and 35 others injured.

Quintin Joey Watts, 52, of Stockton was arrested at a nearby hospital where he had been taken with critical injuries, said Officer Bob Kays, a California Highway Patrol spokesman.


"I don't think it can get much worse than this," Kays said, describing the carnage that left the charter bus a crumpled mass of metal sitting in a farmer's rice field.

Among the dead was the owner of the bus, Daniel E. Cobb Sr., 68., of Sacramento, who owns Beeline Tours and Cobbs Bus Service, both based in Sacramento. The charter bus operator had posted an ad last Thursday for a bus driver position.

In addition to Cobbs, the CHP identified the dead as Lou Her and Muang Saephanh, both 68; Meuay Saelee, 74; Fin Saechae, 64; and Khou Yang, 67. All are from Sacramento.
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4 year old needs prayers after drunk driver takes life of Mom

Summer Moll, 4, lies in a bed in the intensive care unit at Tampa General Hospital. All of her limbs are broken.

A mother is dead. Her four year old daughter fights to stay alive and heal the broken bones. A family prays for the child and grieves for the loss of her mother. Look at the picture of this little girl. Next time you even think about getting behind the wheel of a car drunk, remember what she looks like and then ask yourself if you driving your car is that important to you that you would be willing to jeopardize the life of someone else.

The family needs your prayers and so does this little girl. Pray also for the family of the woman who did this. They are hurting as well.

Her mother gone, Summer still fights
The 4-year-old girl injured Sept. 10 in a head-on crash on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway is in serious condition. Her grandmother has a message for drunk drivers: "Call a neighbor, call me" instead, she says. "I'll come pick you up." Troopers say a drunk driver caused the crash.


TAMPA — Summer Moll has dozens of breaks in her little 4-year-old bones. She nestles in a hospital bed with a brace circling her neck and pins piercing her legs. With a tube in her throat, she can't talk.

She has been here for two weeks, since the day the SUV came barreling the wrong way on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway west of Brandon and smashed into her mother's car.

The crash killed her mother, but she doesn't know that yet. The driver of the car that hit her had been drinking, authorities say.

In intensive care in the days after the Sept. 10 crash, Summer didn't open her eyes. Now, though, she'll wake up for 10-minute intervals. The best medicine seems to be her favorite show, SpongeBob SquarePants, on the hospital television, so a family friend bought her several DVDs.

"Her eyes are wide and awake. She's listening," her grandmother, Tammy Rosian, said.

Summer is fighting and offering her family hope in a dark time.
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Beer is found in wrong-way SUV

Beer is found in wrong-way SUV
By Jessica Vander Velde, Times Staff Writer
In print: Friday, September 12, 2008


TAMPA — The driver of the SUV in Wednesday's fatal crash on the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway had unopened beer in her vehicle, the Florida Highway Patrol said Thursday.

Cheryl M. Riemann of Ruskin had several Budweiser beer bottles in the front of her vehicle, but Highway Patrol Sgt. Steve Gaskins said all the bottles he saw were closed except one that broke in the crash.

The bottles led investigators to believe alcohol may have played a part in the crash, he said. Blood-alcohol test results are pending.

Riemann, 25, was traveling east on the westbound lanes of the expressway just after 2 p.m. Wednesday. Her sport utility vehicle hit a Pontiac coupe head on and killed its driver, Jennifer O'Boyle. It happened on the lower portion of the expressway, not far from Palm River Road.
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/article807176.ece

$10M lottery winner gets prison in fatal crash

$10M lottery winner gets prison in fatal crash
Aug. 16, 2008 09:31 AM
Associated Press
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A man who won $10 million in a California lottery game has been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for a drunken-driving crash that killed three people.

Thomas Turnour had pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and causing injury while driving intoxicated.

The winner of a SuperLotto game in 2001 was sentenced Friday in San Bernardino.

Authorities say the 52-year-old man from Victorville was driving a pickup truck that hit a car stopped at a red light in San Bernardino three years ago. Three people inside the first car died.

His attorney says Turnour essentially "turned over everything he has" to settle a lawsuit filed by the victims' families.
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2008/08/16/20080816lotterycrash-ON.html

Ex-Marine charged in deaths "wasn't the same after war"

Ex-Marine charged in deaths of 2 in Hollywood police chase 'wasn't the same' after war, sister says
The 29-year-old John Marshall High graduate is accused of striking and killing 2 pedestrians along Hollywood Boulevard as police pursued him. His sister said he had nightmares after Afghanistan.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
9:08 AM PDT, July 16, 2008
A motorist charged with two counts of murder for allegedly striking and killing two pedestrians as police pursued him along Hollywood Boulevard was a former Marine, a relative said.

A graduate of John Marshall High School, Sergio Delgado, 29, joined the Marines at 19, was stationed at Camp Pendleton and served in Afghanistan in 2001, said his sister, who asked not to be named when reached at her Los Angeles apartment.

Delgado married and had a son before he was discharged a few years ago, she said.

Delgado, who sometimes uses the name Delgado Valle, also faces two counts of felony gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and fleeing the scene after fatally hitting the man and woman.

"He was so intoxicated when he was arrested he had to be hospitalized," said Cmdr. Debra McCarthy of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Delgado, who was convicted of driving under the influence in 2003 and of illegally driving in a bus lane in 2006, was being held on $1-million bail.

Delgado was a changed man after he returned from serving overseas, his sister said. He had nightly nightmares, drank and argued with his wife. He refused to discuss his problems while he was sober until his wife left last year, and he sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, his sister said. He began taking medication and found a job in the San Fernando Valley at a mortgage brokerage firm. He recently moved closer to his job and was helping to care for his 5-year-old son, his sister said.
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PTSD:After the Battle, Fighting the Bottle at Home

After the Battle, Fighting the Bottle at Home

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: July 8, 2008
Most nights when Anthony Klecker, a former marine, finally slept, he found himself back on the battlefields of Iraq. He would awake in a panic, and struggle futilely to return to sleep.


Days were scarcely better. Car alarms shattered his nerves. Flashbacks came unexpectedly, at the whiff of certain cleaning chemicals. Bar fights seemed unavoidable; he nearly attacked a man for not washing his hands in the bathroom.

Desperate for sleep and relief, Mr. Klecker, 30, drank heavily. One morning, his parents found him in the driveway slumped over the wheel of his car, the door wide open, wipers scraping back and forth. Another time, they found him curled in a fetal position in his closet.

Yet only after his drunken driving caused the death of a 16-year-old cheerleader did Mr. Klecker acknowledge the depth of his problem: His eight months at war had profoundly damaged his psyche.

On Oct. 28, 2006, he drunkenly drove into a highway divider, trapping Deanna Casey, 16, in her small car.

“I was trying to be the tough marine I was trained to be — not to talk about problems, not to cry,” said Mr. Klecker, who has since been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. “I imprisoned myself in my own mind.”

Mr. Klecker’s case is part of a growing body of evidence that alcohol abuse is rising among veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, many of them trying to deaden the repercussions of war and disorientation of home. While the numbers remain relatively small, experts say and studies indicate that the problem is particularly prevalent among those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, as it was after Vietnam. Studies indicate that illegal drug use, much less common than heavy drinking in the military, is up slightly, too.

Increasingly, these troubled veterans are spilling into the criminal justice system. A small fraction wind up in prison for homicides or other major crimes. Far more, though, are involved in drunken bar fights, reckless driving and alcohol-fueled domestic violence. Whatever the particulars, their stories often spool out in unwitting victims, ruptured families, lost jobs and crushing debt.

With the rising awareness of the problem has come mounting concern about the access to treatment and whether enough combat veterans are receiving the help that is available to them.

By last March, he had seen enough. He ordered the base’s newspaper, The Fort Drum Blizzard, to publish the names and photographs of all soldiers charged with drunken driving. To date, at least 116 have appeared. Half were combat veterans who had returned in the last year, the general said, though others may have deployed earlier.

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In part, this dynamic is rooted in the warrior code. Trained to be tough and ignore their fear, many combat veterans are reluctant to acknowledge psychic wounds. Or they worry that getting help will damage their careers. And so, like Mr. Klecker, they treat themselves with the liquor bottle or illegal drugs.

Self-medicating is what they call it. They may seek out drug and alcohol rehabs when their families demand it or their civilian bosses, but they do not work. They do not work for one very simple reason for most. They are not addicted to the chemicals but are trying to kill off the feelings they do not want to feel.

When PTSD spiraled out of control, my husband checked into several rehabs. None of them worked. AA didn't work. He would dry out, get angry and jumpy, then start self-medicating all over again. He had a mentor from an AA group once, another Vietnam Vet like him. He told my husband that AA worked in his case because he was in fact an alcoholic but did not have PTSD. My husband didn't stop drinking until the treatment from the VA began to work with a combination of medication and talk therapy. That was when he began to get his life back.

It's one of the biggest problems families face when they come home with PTSD. We have to deal with the changes in someone we love; acknowledge the fact they have become strangers to us; deal with walking on egg shells afraid to set them off; try to keep the house calm so they don't freak out; live on edge wondering if they will be having a good day or another bad one and then have to worry about yet another night of their nightmares freaking out the entire household. Oh, but that isn't the worst.

When they are self-medicating, we go from worrying about the doorbell ringing to tell us they were killed in action, to worrying about it being a police officer to tell us they were killed in an accident, or killed someone else. We get to a point when their runaway days of taking off, not knowing where they are or what shape they will come home in, to not wanting them to come home at all. While they are away from there house, there is normalcy in the house. At least that is what we think because we cannot see the wound we ourselves carry within us.

We change as well. It's very hard to not change when you live on a roller coaster ride of emotional turmoil constantly. One day they seem like their old self but the next they are strangers again. One moment they could be talking to us the way they used to but say the wrong word conjuring up the wrong image in their mind and they explode. Sometimes they feel so badly about themselves they are actually looking for an argument or fight just to be able to rationalize how badly they feel inside. Then we have to deal with the fact love, compassion, passion, has all dried up inside of them. We know it's there somewhere within them but we just can't find it.

You can't find it until they are being treated for the wound and even then, it's not the same as it was before they were wounded. We adjust. We find what works as we try to understand what makes things worse. We get used to doing things alone we used to do with them like shopping, going to family functions, to the movies, out to dinner. We have to handle the finances and make the decision because they are no longer capable of making rational choices. Then there is the short term memory loss frustrating the hell out of us. They can remember something that happened twenty years ago but can't remember a conversation we had with them just this morning.

The hopeful thing is that when they are being treated for PTSD, things get better. There is no cure for it and there is no undoing the parts of them that are lost forever, but we find a way for it to work if we are willing. Some of us can't do it. Some of us can and then we make a commitment to understand we are no long living with a normal person but living with a wounded one instead. How can they be "normal" when they lived through what they did? We've been married almost 24 years. I've spent more than half my life with him. My husband is living proof treatment works but I had to be willing to stick it out. It's a joint effort. He was willing to receive help and the VA was there to help him once his claim was approved and I was willing to stay.

What about the veterans who have no one left to stand by their side? They end up being homeless without an advocate taking care of what a spouse would. They have no one to calm them down or worry about their well being. There are too many of them left to fight alone. They end up in jail because no one is there to get them into the help they need but feel they do not deserve or when they do not trust anything associated with the government. Without support, emotionally or financially, they do whatever it takes to get the relief they need. Crimes and violence all play into this.

In a perfect world they would all be taken care of automatically. In a perfect world there would always be someone standing by their side watching their back as they had while deployed. This is far from a perfect world. We have yet to come close to taking care of them and even further away from taking care of the families. We need support to stay and forgiveness when we cannot. Whenever you read a story about a veteran falling through the cracks, you need to acknowledge there is also a family dropping off the face of the normal earth with them. Senator Clinton wrote a book called It Takes A Village, but in this case, when it's PTSD, it takes an army to care for the wounded.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Bliss soldier charged with intoxicated manslaughter

Bliss soldier charged with intoxicated manslaughter

Posted: June 14, 2008 09:27 PM EDT


EL PASO -- A Fort Bliss soldier is behind bars and one woman is dead after an early-morning crash Saturday.

Rodriguez Kemp, 19, allegedly plowed into four women with his pick-up truck as they were leaving the Chit Chat Lounge near the intersection of Dyer and Truman in Central El Paso.

Kemp -- a soldier stationed at Fort Bliss -- is charged with intoxicated manslaughter and two counts of intoxicated assault.

Police officials said the collision happened shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday.

According to Investigators, the four women were crossing Dyer right in front of the bar when they were struck by the soldier.

Claudia Lopez, 28, of the 12000 block of Saint Lawrence, was rushed to William Beaumont Army Medical Center. She died moments later.

Erika James, 26, of the 12000 block of Roadhouse; and Licia Kim, 28, of the 1900 block of Ratner were taken to Thomason Hospital with serious injuries.

Lashanda Delaney, of the 10000 block of Bob Stone, received non-life threatning injuries.

"When he realized he hit them, he came out with his hands up, he sat on the ground and that's when the police took him inside the club," said Leon Holt, who was walking the women to their cars across the street.

Holt told ABC-7 he kept on repeating the early-morning scene in his mind throughout the day.

He was holding one of the women by the hand and then she was no longer with him. "When I looked up, she let my hand go. So I don't know what's going on," said Holt, "I look to see what's going on or where she went. When I looked up, she was flying down the street."
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http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?S=8492767&nav=AbBzdY6a

Marine who claimed PTSD pleads guilty to manslaughter

Marine who claimed PTSD pleads guilty to manslaughter
June 5, 2008 - 12:27PM
Jeremy Roebuck
EDINBURG - A Peñitas Marine pleaded guilty Thursday to charges connected to the drunken driving death of a Pharr woman last year.


Erik James Mercado, 26, asked a judge for leniency soon after his arrest claiming he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of the Feb. 4, 2007, wreck.

But his attorney - Ricardo Palacios - made no similar claims as Mercado approached visiting Judge Homer Salinas to enter his plea.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Mercado was sentenced to 10 years probation and a 50-day stint in the county jail.

He will be required to pay $120,000 in restitution over the next decade.

He avoided more extensive jail time because he would lose his veteran's disability benefits should he be incarcerated for more than 60 days. Prosecutors felt it was important that he be able to pay restitution to Eusebia Aragon Estrada's surviving children.

"He's got a lot ahead of him," Palacios said. "It's not a walk in the park."

Breathalyzer tests indicate Mercado had a blood-alcohol level of .11 --.03 over Texas' legal .08 limit - the night he rear-ended Aragon's silver Chevrolet Impala while driving back from a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Mission.

The collision caused the Impala to roll over into the median near the intersection of Expressway 83 and Inspiration Road, killing Aragon on impact.

But since then life has been difficult for Aragon's children - Diana, 9, and Edward, 7, their grandmother Guadalupe Romo said.

Five months after Aragon's death, her husband died of a heart attack.

"He died of a broken heart," Romo said. "He was never the same after her death."

Since then, the children have been living with Romo, a retired nurse.

Shortly after Thursday's hearing, she said she was not interested in Mercado's money but felt restitution payments were important.

"Every time he has to write that check, he'll have to remember (the children)," she said.
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/claimed_12802___article.html/ptsd_edinburg.html

Ian Bowers on leave from Iraq homicide by drunk driving

Dave Zweifel: After vets return, war takes deadly toll
Dave Zweifel — 1/18/2008 10:06 am

The homicide by drunken driving sentencing of Ian Bowers, the young Madison soldier who was home on leave from the Iraq war, happened to come on the eve of an eye-opening investigation by the New York Times on the impact that war is having on so many of its returning veterans.

There is nothing to say that Bowers was suffering from the psychological stress of the war. But his picture is included in the newspaper's photo montage of vets who have been involved in homicides after returning home from the war.

Bowers was sentenced to 13 years in prison for driving more than 70 miles an hour through a residential intersection and crashing into another car. The accident took two lives and seriously injured two others on Christmas Day in 2006.

The newspaper's report makes it clear that the fatal incidents represent a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of vets returning from Iraq, but there have been enough cases that the military and others are expressing concern. According to the story, at least 121 vets of Iraq and Afghanistan have either committed a killing or are charged with one. And many more have committed suicide.

And like Ian Bowers, most have had no problems with their lives or the law before their war service.
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http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/268017

Ever think things like this could have more to do with IED blowing them up in Iraq than it does to being just another irresponsible drunk driver?

Family tragedy living with PTSD

This report is not about combat, but living with PTSD. It shows what it is like for the family. Maybe after reading it, you can get out of your own mind what you envision the type of person who suffers with PTSD is. This woman is married to a successful doctor. They live in a mansion. Educated people among the elite. Yet this woman, living with the horrors of sexual abuse, is responsible for the death of someone else. While drunk driving, she killed a mailman.

Some will read this and think she needs to be locked away for the rest of her life. After all, an innocent man is dead because of her. I read it and thought about all the other families out there dealing with PTSD in someone they love.

In Jack's dark days, he would take off for hours at a time. We never knew where he was but we knew how he would come home, drunk. Jack didn't drive if he had too much to drink. For that, I am grateful. He did drink and drive, but when he knew he had too much, he would walk home or get a ride. A few times, he couldn't remember exactly where he left the car. One time he remembered where the car was, but lost his set of keys, including the keys he needed for work.

What we need to remember is that you cannot force someone to seek help. You can support them in seeking it,but in the end it is up to them. We can make sure the help is there when they finally reach out for it. In the case of this doctor's wife, I'm sure they can get her all the help she wants but they key word is "want" which she does not accept.

You need to understand that while most do in fact want help, some don't. Some are in such denial they will never overcome it. Others will feel they don't deserve it.

This report from the Hartford Courant offers a window on a family not falling into the notion of what a person with PTSD is. If we are ever going to defeat the ravages of PTSD, we need to see it as what it is. It is a human illness caused by trauma. Maybe after reading this you can better understand what our combat veterans are going through and what their families go through as well.

Some families can survive it, like our's did. We've been married 23 years. Some will fall apart. We need to end the stigma of PTSD, educate everyone on what PTSD is, make sure help is there when they seek it and we also need to remember to support the families. They need all the help and compassion they can get. kc

He said her alcoholism stems from post-traumatic stress disorder, a byproduct of sexual abuse she suffered as a child. When Watson "consumed a crazy amount of alcohol, this was to try, in a very desperate way, to silence the demons in her head," he said.

Woman Gets Four Years
Caused Fatal Accident And Fled In 2003; Violated Probation In April Car Crash
By CHRISTINE DEMPSEY Courant Staff Writer
November 30, 2007

MANCHESTER — - Aubrey Watson seemed incredulous Thursday when Judge Raymond Norko abruptly ordered her mother, Tracy Watson, to prison for four years for violating her probation, part of her sentence for a 2003 hit-and-run accident that killed a mailman.

But when his words sank in, the 16-year-old wailed in Superior Court in Manchester. Her father, Dr. H. Kirk Watson, tried to console her, but he, too, was shaken.

"No, no!" he said. "Oh my God."
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctwatson1130.artnov30,0,2903305.story