Marine Iraq Veteran Ended Up Dead After Call For Help

Claim details why family faults Wichita police in Marine veteran’s shooting death 
The Wichita Eagle
BY TIM POTTER
June 16, 2015

Standing in her front yard, Beverly Allen holds a picture of her son, Icarus Randolph, while surround by her daughters Ida Allen, left, Elisa Allen and Briana Alford. All four were witnesses when Icarus Randolph was shot and killed by a Wichita police officer on July 4, 2014.
Travis Heying The Wichita Eagle

Icarus Randolph – a Marine veteran who suffered from PTSD after serving in Iraq – became a casualty of Wichita police officers who ignored their department’s policy on helping mentally ill people, Randolph’s family alleges in a legal claim against the city.

The city on Tuesday released to The Eagle a copy of the full claim document, which demands $5 million and says that a Wichita police officer needlessly and wrongly shot and killed the 26-year-old in his mother’s front yard on July the Fourth as his family pleaded for help and watched in horror. Family members also were in the line of fire, the claim says.

The claim faults the actions of one officer in particular, saying that although he had training on dealing with the mentally ill, he violated the policy by escalating the situation. He argued with family members within earshot of Randolph, the claim says. Under the policy, the Randolph family should have been removed from the front yard to help de-escalate the situation and to protect them “if a situation goes badly,” the claim says.

The officer also worsened the situation and further violated the policy by stepping toward Randolph as he advanced and by failing to give himself room to withdraw, the family alleges. Wakarusa lawyer Lee Barnett filed the claim on behalf of the family on June 2. A claim is a required step before a lawsuit can be filed.
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Linked from RawStory

Call of Help Leaves PTSD Veteran Dead in Kansas

No charges planned against officers in man’s shooting death
By - Associated Press
Saturday, June 13, 2015

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - No charges will be filed over the shooting death of a man accused of lunging at a Wichita police officer with a knife, authorities say.

In announcing the decision Friday, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett also released his full report into the July 4 shooting of Icarus Randolph, saying he was seeking to introduce more transparency to his office.

“The conclusion in this case is that the police officer was placed in a situation where he objectively and reasonably felt he needed to defend himself against the advance of someone who was not responding to calls . either from the officer or from family,” Bennett said.

The report said relatives became concerned because Randolph, a veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, wasn’t interacting with them.

Family members said they called mental health associations for help and were advised to call 911. The family wanted Randolph to be taken to a local mental health treatment center.
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Have You Seen Dan?

Parents from Illinois are in Kansas searching for their adult son. May not make sense to you but it makes sense to them. Dan is an Iraq veteran with PTSD. He may have become one of those homeless people you see everyday walking the streets because combat tagged along and the VA didn't help.

Family searches for missing veteran in Wichita
KWCH News
Hannah Davis
Feb 12, 2015

Family searching for missing veteran

WICHITA, Kan. - Kim Nerstrom came to Wichita for the first time Thursday morning.

She and her husband are here from Illinois to find their son.

"I still can't believe he's gone," Nerstrom said.

Her son's name is Dan and he's been missing since December 2014.

Nerstrom says the Iraq veteran struggled with severe PTSD after returning from war.

"He went to the VA for help and they just wanted to mute everything with drugs. He wasn't getting better and he was afraid he'd hurt us. He left because he loves us," Nerstrom says.

She and her husband will spend the weekend driving Wichita's streets looking for their son who they believe is homeless in the Wichita area. read more here

Veterans Offer Honor Funeral For Homeless Veteran

Homeless veteran receives military funeral 
KWCH 12 News
Scott Evans
Jan 28, 2015

Wichita, Kan. - A military veteran received a military funeral in Wichita today.

For a military veteran's funeral it was a familiar site, flags, motorcycles and other veterans.

What makes the funeral of 74 year old Donald Lee Nibel different is who was there. "Never met him," said Ron Vangas, Past Director, Chapter 136 American Legion Riders.

Vangas was just one of dozens of people who have not only never met Nibel but really knew nothing about him. "He was a veteran, just because he was homeless doesn't mean he was still not a brother.

He served his country like all of us did and we're here to honor him for that," said Vangas. Not knowing Nibel didn't matter. He was a veteran and that was enough to deserve this attention.
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Kansas Iraq Veteran Personal Battle with PTSD Becomes Cause for Others

Kan. vet’s struggle with PTSD motivates desire to help others 
KHI News Service
By Andy Marso
December 28, 2014

After his Army service, Will Stucker earned a bachelor’s degree in family studies at Manhattan Christian College and is now working on a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Emporia State University. He plans to work with other veterans and help them overcome post-traumatic stress syndrome.- photo by Andy Marso

Need is great About one-third of the 2.6 million veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with mental illnesses like PTSD, anxiety and depression. The VA Eastern Kansas Health Care System, which includes the Topeka hospital where Stucker was treated, is seeing more patients for PTSD every year: up from 1,297 in 2011 to 2,216 in 2014. The costs of PTSD treatment there this year exceeded $28 million

TOPEKA — Sitting in a Junction City coffee shop with his laptop and a pile of textbooks splayed on a table, Will Stucker looks like any other college student, if a bit older than average. But Stucker, 38, has taken a different path to college than most of his classmates at Emporia State University.

His path took him to South Korea and Kuwait, then to a tank rolling toward Baghdad, then to an armored Humvee on the streets of a small town in Iraq where insurgents repeatedly tried to kill him — and two of them almost succeeded.

Then, finally, to a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Topeka, where counselors helped him work through the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he came home with. Stucker is working toward a master’s degree in clinical psychology so that he can help other veterans overcome PTSD. read more here

Pat "Grandpa" Featherby, Iraq War veteran from Wichita passed away

Pat Featherby, Iraq War veteran from Wichita, dies at 44 
THE WICHITA EAGLE
BY FRED MANN
 12/23/2014

“All you have is each other. Without each other, we would not have made it. There is no question in my mind.”

Spc. Pat Featherby died Dec. 19 at age 44. TRAVIS HEYING FILE PHOTO

Pat Featherby was a bouncer and concert promoter in Wichita when he saw a report on television about American soldiers being ambushed and killed in Iraq. He decided to do something about that.

He signed up for duty with the Kansas Army National Guard at age 35, earning the nickname “Grampa” in basic training.

In the Guard’s 714th Security Force, Spc. Featherby reunited with a childhood buddy, Sgt. Jerry Young. They traveled together to Iraq, roomed together and rode in the same escort convoys in northern Iraq, Young leading the way in the scout vehicle.

Both suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries from roadside bombs.

They talked each other through the war, and after they returned home they talked each other through their lives as they dealt with severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and a host of other medical, financial and social issues.

Mr. Featherby died Dec. 19 of what his family said were service-related injuries. He was 44.
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Sgt. Jamie Jarboe Shot by Sniper in Afghanistan, Killed By Medical Error

When you read the rest of this story, and I really hope you do, keep one thing in mind that the DOD and the VA had less doctors, nurses, claims processors and mental health worker than they had after the Gulf War, but they just hoped we didn't notice.

Wounded veterans return to unprepared medical system
Harvard researcher says federal government lacks a plan to care for them
Kansas Health Institute
By Andy Marso
KHI News Service
Dec. 22, 2014

Esther Klay
Melissa Jarboe documents the medical treatments her husband, Jamie, endured after being shot during a tour of duty in Afghanistan in April 2011. Jamie Jarboe underwent dozens of surgeries, including a procedure in which his esophagus was perforated, before he died in March 2012. Melissa Jarboe started a foundation called the Military Veteran Project and advocates for additional investments in veteran-supported nonprofits and the Veterans Administration health system.

TOPEKA — A sniper’s bullet tore through U.S. Army Sgt. Jamie Jarboe’s neck while he was on patrol during a tour of duty in Afghanistan in April 2011. The bullet shattered three vertebrae, severed Jarboe’s spinal cord and caused severe bleeding.

It was the kind of wound that almost certainly would have been fatal in previous conflicts.

But an Army medic was at Jarboe’s side almost immediately to keep him from bleeding out, and within 17 minutes of the shooting a helicopter lifted Jarboe out of the danger zone.

In less than an hour, he arrived at a state-of-the-art field hospital in Kandahar, where a medical team was waiting to stabilize him enough so that he could be evacuated from the country.

Jarboe arrived back on American soil paralyzed but alive and was able to get the best care the military had to offer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

But less than a year later he was dead from complications of surgery, one of several medical errors that his wife, Melissa Jarboe, documented in a self-published memoir about her husband’s last months.

“It wasn’t the sniper that shot him that killed him,” Melissa Jarboe, of Topeka, said in a recent interview.
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Iraq Veteran Marine Icarus Randolph Casualty of War on Front Lawn

UPDATE

Judge: Wichita officer’s shooting vet with PTSD reasonable

November 30, 2017

Mentally ill Marine’s family says Wichita police let situation escalate before his fatal shooting
THE WICHITA EAGLE
BY TIM POTTER
10/04/2014

“I never would have guessed in a million years that my son would have been shot down in my front yard in front of me,” Beverly Allen said.

On July 4, Icarus Randolph woke up in a bad mental place.

The 26-year-old Marine veteran had served in Iraq and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, his family says.

That afternoon, he became a casualty on his mother’s front lawn when a Wichita police officer shot him in front of his family. Then-Police Chief Norman Williams said the officer fired the fatal shots after Randolph charged with a knife.

It was supposed to be a good day at the family home on East Clay, near Rock and Lincoln. Randolph’s mother planned a cook-out. But when Beverly Allen returned from the store, her son’s eyes told her he was upset. She knew it was serious enough to call for help and ended up talking to a 911 dispatcher.

The purpose that day, his family says, was to get help for him. Instead, they say, the two police officers sent to the home allowed the situation to escalate.

One officer – the one who fired the shots – spent crucial minutes arguing with the family in the small front yard when he should have been trying to diffuse things before Randolph came out of a door with a knife, says his older sister, Ida Allen.
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Suicidal Iraq Veteran Killed by Police in Kansas

Kansas news station focuses on what Veterans deserve

'What They Deserve' Part 2: Pompeo Says VA Must Change Its Ways
WIBW News
By: KAKE; David Marcus and Greg Palmer
Sep 12, 2014

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE)-- Wednesday night, we introduced you to Donna Doudna and her father, Don Kosht, a Vietnam veteran still waiting more than two years to see a resolution to his VA benefits appeals.

"Where's the other benefits?", asks Doudna. "Where's the compensation for his time? And his pain? Where's that at? I'd actually like to know where that's at."

It's a battle veterans in Wichita, and thousands nationwide, are fighting.

One Wichita veteran, who doesn't want to be identified, shows us sores on his arms that still show up, from exposure to agent orange.

He tells KAKE News that, four times, his claim was denied because of the same clerical error.

He says, on top of the extensive delays, the lengthy and complicated paperwork required for a claim is filled with landmines and makes nearly no sense to most veterans.

"They read the regulations and the notices and everything and it's gobleygook," the veteran says. "It's written in legalese."

So, the veteran turned his anger and frustration with his own VA benefits claim, towards helping others with the same problem. He's helped nearly a dozen local veterans process the complicated jargon in the claims paperwork.

"They're confused...they're upset.....they're frustrated....they're mad!", he shouts.
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Ex-Air Force instructor found dead in Fort Leavenworth cell

Ex-Lackland instructor dead in apparent suicide
My San Antonio
BY SIG CHRISTENSON
SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

Photo By Billy Calzada/San Antonio Express-News
Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on Friday, July 20, 2012.

SAN ANTONIO — A former Air Force basic training instructor who was found guilty of rape and other sexual misconduct charges two years ago at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland died Sunday after hanging himself in his prison cell, Air Force officials said.

Airman Basic Luis Walker, 28, was found in his cell Friday at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks on Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He was taken to a Kansas City, Missouri, hospital, where he died Sunday night..

The Disciplinary Barracks did not respond to emails or phone calls, but the Air Education and Training Command said Tuesday it had been notified of his death.
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Suicidal Iraq Veteran Killed by Police in Kansas

Possibly suicidal Iraq war veteran dead after officer-involved shooting in Wichita, KS
41 Action News Staff , With KSN
July 4, 2014

WICHITA, Kan. - Police in Wichita, Kan., fatally shot a man who, they said, was coming at them with a weapon.

Police said they received a call from family members inside a house in the 7800 block of East Clay around 1 p.m. that a man was suicidal.

When the police arrived, he came outside and approached officers in an aggressive manner with a weapon in hand.

One of the two police officers involved attempted to subdue the man with a stun gun after noticing the weapon. When that didn’t work, the officer used their handgun.

The family said the man was in the military and had done tours in Iraq. He had been dealing with mental issues prior to this incident.
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UPDATE

Family holds vigil after man dies in officer-involved shooting
KWCH 12 News
Jul 05, 2014

WICHITA, Kan.
Family members spoke today at a vigil in honor of a man who died in an officer-involved shooting yesterday.

"We were failed, they failed," Ida Allen, sister of the man killed said. "The city failed us."

Police say Icarus Randolph charged at an officer with a knife after they were called to the scene by family for a report of a suicidal person.

His family says Randolph's mother made a call for law enforcement to check on his mental wellness, saying he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after serving in the Iraq war as a Marine.
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Fort Riley Soldier's Body Found in Apartment

Fort Riley soldier found dead in apartment 
Great Bend Post
May 27, 2014

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (AP) — Police in Junction City are investigating the death of a Fort Riley soldier in an off-post apartment.

The serviceman was identified Tuesday as 26-year-old Shawn Michael Thomas. Police responding to a report of a shooting Monday found Thomas dead of a single gunshot wound.

Investigators said in a news release that Thomas was assigned to E Company of 3rd Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment.
check here for updates

Vietnam Veteran made headline but other interest didn't

The fact the man charges in killing people is a Vietnam veteran made the headline but the fact he is a White Supremacist didn't? Read the story and see which one would have more to do with what he is accused of doing.

Murder Charges Against Vietnam War Veteran Filed in Shootings at Kansas Jewish Sites
Murder charges filed in shootings at Kansas Jewish sites
NTD
2014-04-15

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2014 (AFP)

US prosecutors filed a death penalty murder charge Tuesday against a white supremacist accused of fatally shooting three people at Jewish sites in Kansas over the weekend.

Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, also known as F. Glenn Miller, was charged with one count of capital murder for the deaths of a 69-year-old physician and his teenaged grandson outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City.

He also faced one count of first-degree premeditated murder for the death of a 53-year-old woman at the nearby Village Shalom retirement community where she was paying a weekly visit to her mother.

Riding in a wheelchair and wearing a dark sleeveless outfit, Cross made his first court appearance later via video link from a county jail, where he was being held in lieu of $10 million bail.

With his arms crossed, and a copy of the charges in his clinched hand, he accepted a court-appointed defense lawyer, saying he had no money to pay for his own attorney.

Magistrate Judge Dan Vokins told Cross to return on April 24 for a scheduling conference.

Sunday's bloodshed -- on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover -- occurred in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park. All three victims were Christian.
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Navy SEALS train 6 year old, show tender side

Mar 30, 2014
Mason Rudder, 6, of suburban Kansas City, Mo., trains with a former Navy Seal at a military training facility near Farmington, Mo.

The boy has a rare genetic neuromuscular disorder and aspires to join the Navy Seals


St. Louis Post Dispatch
By Joel Currier

ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY, MO. • Mason Rudder peppered bullets from a fully automatic M4 rifle into a car, charged through a field while firing an AR-15, and helped build and set off a wall bomb that blew the door off a building.

Though Mason is no war hero, he got to feel like one Sunday. He is 6 years old and dreams of joining the Navy SEALs.

Mason’s parents, George and Suzanne Rudder, former St. Louis County residents who now live near Kansas City, surprised Mason for his birthday by driving across the state to a tactical training center near Farmington, Mo., to shoot and train with a former member of the Navy SEALs.

“He didn’t know until today,” said Suzanne Rudder, 36. “I think he was just stunned when we got here.”

Mason was born with a genetic disorder (Escobar syndrome) that causes limited movement and a decreased range of motion, his parents say. Mason is about 3½ feet tall and weighs just 32 pounds. Mason’s sister, Haley, 7, also has the disorder; their brother, Collin, 9, does not.
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linked from Stars and Stripes

Military children often feel 'aftershock' of parent's PTSD

Military children often feel 'aftershock' of parent's PTSD
Topeka Capital Journal
By Jan Biles
March 29, 2014

The pain Kristin and Kaili Stowers have experienced as a result of their father's military-related post-traumatic stress disorder can be seen in their eyes and heard in their voices.

The sisters, who attend Prairie Hills Middle School in Hutchinson, have learned PTSD not only affects veterans, but its "aftershocks" also can be felt by the children of veterans.

"I've gotten more nervous, and like with test grades, I'm afraid if I do fail that Dad's going to harm me in some way or just say something to me," said Kristin, 12.

"His PTSD was affecting me, I think, the most out of the family," said Kaili, 14. "I just got quiet. I isolated myself like he was doing to himself. I snapped at my mom a few times like he did.

"They finally noticed, and my mom asked me if I wanted help. I now see a therapist along with my sister. Hopefully, we're going to start getting family therapy."

Their father, Steve Stowers, 43, is a U.S. Marine veteran who served in Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91 and was diagnosed with PTSD in 2010. After his diagnosis, Steve was medically retired from his duties as a sergeant with the Hutchinson Police Department.
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Four Homeless Vietnam Veterans laid to rest with honor

Four Homeless Veterans Finally Receive Burial
WIBW News
By: Greg Palmer
Jan 31, 2014

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) Four more homeless veterans were honored Friday for their service to their county and laid to rest with full military honors at The Leavenworth National Cemetery.

13 news first covered this story last month, when we received a tip that the body of veteran Charles Thompson had been in the Shawnee County Morgue, unclaimed by family for four months.

The names of the four Vietnam veterans are

Clarke Paul Gould

Robert Lee Norris

Ramsey Phillips

James Allen Young.
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Family being forced to move while Soldier serves in Afghanistan

Military families near Fort Riley being forced to move
WDAF News Kansas
by Sean McDowell
January 15, 2014

MILFORD, Kan. – They’re a military family based near Fort Riley. As of next week, they say they’ll have no place to live.

The Mondick Family lives in a campground in Milford, Kansas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is forcing them to leave. Teresita Mondick says she and her three young children have made their home in a camper near Ft. Riley for about six months.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers owns the land, and as of next Thursday morning, its policy says she’ll have to take her 40-foot camper and find a new place to live.

The Mondicks live in a camper while Teresita’s husband, Sgt. Jeremy Mondick, is serving a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

A spokesman with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told FOX 4 News the campgrounds were never meant to be permanent homes, and that residents were notified months ago they’d need to leave. “I understand policy is policy, and regulation is regulation,” Mondick said. “They have to toe the line, but there can always be exceptions to the rule.”

Teresita also served in the military, and she’s accustomed to being relocated for deployment. She said her family still owns a home in Tennessee near Fort Campbell, and can’t afford additional housing costs.
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Disabled Vet Finally Gets Purple Heart Keeps Empty Wallet

Retired staff sergeant receives Purple Heart, still no VA disability benefits
KCTV News
By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer
By Dave Jordan, News Reporter
Posted: Jan 10, 2014

FAIRWAY, KS (KCTV)
It's been more than two years since Staff Sgt. Ezekiel Crozier nearly died when his helicopter crashed in Afghanistan.

He underwent rehabilitation, got a Purple Heart and an outpouring of support from his community. What Crozier doesn't have is his Veterans Administration disability benefits.

Crozier was 41 days into his second tour in Afghanistan when a Chinook Helicopter went down in July 2011.

"You have to put it in perspective. The ones that aren't lucky, the ones that aren't here. I think about that every day," he said.

Crozier suffered a severe brain injury that required rehab. This week he received a Purple Heart.

"That gives me closure. It actually feels like I'm recognized by the government," he said.

But at the same time Crozier feels ignored by the same country he fought for, after failing to receive his disability benefits, causing a financial hardship that weighed heavily on his family.

"Now I've got to suck up my pride and ask for help at times and who wants to do that, you know? It's been a struggle," he said.

He officially retired from the military in July 2013. Processing of his claim was expected to take just two months, but that claim was part of a huge backlog caused in part by increased filings and not enough staff to process them all.
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Legal twist reconnects 2 sailors: attacker and victim

Legal twist reconnects 2 sailors: attacker and victim
The Virginian-Pilot
By Dianna Cahn
Published: December 20, 2013

It was a bizarre and horrific scene: a sailor going berserk in the galley of a Navy barge at a local shipyard and slashing the throat of a shipmate.

The delusional violence in March 2007 landed one man in prison and the other in an operating room. It also trapped the two sailors in a prism of legal turns that continue to this day.

After two trials and more than five years in prison, the attacker, Seaman Richard Mott, has been on duty at Norfolk Naval Station since September. His conviction for attempted murder was set aside this summer, after he had been paroled.

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Mott is monitored daily to ensure he takes his medications. His supervisors at the naval station say his illness is under control.

The victim, Jose Garcia, sits at home in Kansas, embittered by constant pain and post-traumatic stress disorder that has been, at times, debilitating. He blames the Navy for forcing him to relive his nightmare and leaving him to fall through the cracks when he needed help most.

"I feel like they care more about what's happening to the other guy," Garcia says. "No one has checked on me at all. The only time I've ever gotten a call is if they need something from me."

Neither man was on active duty in July, when the appeals court handed down its ruling, but the decision has brought attacker and victim back in the Navy's reach for one final legal and financial twist.
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Troops killed in Afghanistan helicopter crash from Fort Riley and Germany

Department of Defense
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release No: NR-083-13 December 19, 2013

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of six soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died Dec. 17, in Now Bahar, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered as a result of a helicopter crash. The incident is pending investigation.

Killed were:

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Randy L. Billings, 34, of Heavener, Okla.,

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joshua B. Silverman, 35, of Scottsdale, Ariz., and

Sgt. Peter C. Bohler, 29, of Willow Spring, N.C.

They were assigned to the 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Sgt. 1st Class Omar W. Forde, 28, of Marietta, Ga., assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Staff Sgt. Jesse L. Williams, 30, of Elkhart, Ind., assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, Regimental Support Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck, Germany.

Spc. Terry K. D. Gordon, 22, of Shubuta, Miss., assigned to 1st Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.