Canada Charity Gives First Responders PTSD Service Dogs

PTSD service dog meets family of firefighter who took his own life
CTVNews.ca Staff
Published Monday, February 29, 2016

"What they're doing here is just beyond words, it's incredible," he said. "Finally, somebody has recognized mental health problems in first responders, and they're actually doing something about it."

A service dog named in memory of an Edmonton firefighter and former draft pick for the Edmonton Oilers was given a hero's welcome on Sunday.

Bolt is a post-traumatic stress disorder service dog. Dogs like Bolt are trained to help first responders overcome trauma. The volunteer organization United By Trauma provides the dogs to emergency workers affected by PTSD.

Bolt is still in training, but will soon be ready for work, the organization's co-founder, Nicole Taylor, told CTV Edmonton.
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Guindon Military Family Suffers Second Tragedy

New England native fatally shot on first patrol as police officer
Boston Globe
By Maria Cramer Globe Staff
FEBRUARY 28, 2016

The shooting ended a young life already marked by tragedy. In 2004, when she was in high school, her father, Air National Guardsman David Guindon, killed himself the day after he returned from a grueling six-month tour in Iraq.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT PHOTO

Officer Ashley Guindon of the Prince William County (Virginia) Police Department.

New England native Ashley Guindon first joined the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia in 2015 but left abruptly for personal reasons. She returned less than a year later.

“She felt like she still wanted to do this job,” Police Chief Stephan M. Hudson told reporters. “She couldn’t get it out of her blood.”

Late Saturday afternoon, on her first day back with the department, 28-year-old Guindon and two other officers approached a house in Woodbridge, a suburban community 20 miles south of Washington, D.C. A woman there had called police after a fight with her husband. As they neared the front door, the husband, Ronald Hamilton, a 32-year-old Army staff sergeant, allegedly opened fire, striking all three officers, Hudson said during a press conference Sunday.

Guindon, who was born in Springfield, Mass., and raised in Merrimack, N.H., was killed.

On Sunday morning, Merrimack police escorted Guindon’s mother, Sharon, to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport so she could fly to Virginia.

Determined and intellectually gifted, Guindon graduated in 2005 from Merrimack High School and went to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. She spent six years in the US Marine Corps Reserve and was drawn to forensic science, a fascination that led her to work in a funeral home while she was still in college.
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Nebraska County Jail Starts Veterans Unit

Douglas County jail in Omaha opens new military vet unit
The Columbus Telegram
Updated Feb 27, 2016

Justine Wall, the department's in-house program coordinator, said he's never seen a prison unit operate the way the veterans unit does, "where everybody looks out for each other, everybody takes care of each other."

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Douglas County jail in Omaha has a new prisoner unit to house military veterans, the first of its kind in Nebraska and one of several in jails nationwide.

The Douglas County Department of Corrections unit, which houses 25 to 30 men, opened about three months ago, The Omaha World-Herald reported (http://bit.ly/1KSG8d0 ) Saturday.

The special unit is based on the idea that many crimes committed by veterans are related to things that happened to them in the military.

"People who went down-range, they saw things, they have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), they are back, they self-medicate, and they get in trouble," said Mick Wagoner, a lawyer with the Veterans Support Legal Network.

The unit is open to all male military veterans except for the most dangerous, predatory or disruptive people. People facing murder charges aren't eligible, nor are those with chronic behavior problems in jail.
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Vietnam Veteran's Daughter Fights For Justice

Daughter Believes Dad Was Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder 
FOX ILLINOIS 
BY LINDSEY HESS 
FEBRUARY 28TH 2016

"He's wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder. There was no intent here. He didn't wake up in the morning and say 'hey, I'm going to kill my brother today.' He simply tried to stop his violent brother," said Thompson.

The nation's top legal experts believe up to 100,000 U.S. prisoners are innocent.

The issue of wrongful convictions has been thrust into the spotlight recently after the wildly popular Netflix documentary 'Making a Murderer' took the nation by storm.

A Springfield woman claims her father was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder, and now she's fighting for justice.

"Anyone that knows him knows he loved his brother. And there's no way he intended to do this. There's no way," said Kelly Thompson.

But that's not how the jury saw it.

"There was no forensic experts. No one testified about his post-traumatic stress disorder from being a Vietnam vet. No one testified about how drunk he was. No one testified about any of the forensics of where my uncle was on the couch compared to what the state was trying to say," said Thompson.
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Virginia Gunman Facing Murder Charges, Pentagon Army Staff Sergeant

UPDATE
Police: Army staff sergeant killed rookie cop who was Marine reservist

Guindon was a former Marine Corps reservist and had a master's degree in forensic science, according to Hudson. Guindon served in the Marine Corps Reserves from May 2007 to February 2015 as a field radio operator, said Capt. Andrew Chrestman, a spokesman for U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve. She ultimately reached the rank of corporal and was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Selected Marine Corps Reserve Medal.

Virginia police officer killed on her first day on the job; man charged
CNN
By Ralph Ellis, Faith Karimi and Joe Sutton
Updated 4:02 PM ET, Sun February 28, 2016
Video Source: WJLA

Ronald Williams Hamilton faces two murder charges.

Hamilton is an active duty Army staff sergeant assigned to the Joint Staff Support Center at the Pentagon, said Cindy Your of the Defense Information Systems Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Ashley Guindon was sworn in as an officer on Friday.

CNN)A police department in a Washington suburb is mourning an officer who was killed during her first day on the job.

Ashley Guindon, 28, of the Prince William County Police Department was fatally shot Saturday in Woodbridge, Virginia, while answering a domestic call in which two other officers were wounded and the suspect's wife was killed, county police Chief Steve Hudson said at a news conference on Sunday. Guindon had taken the oath of office on Friday.

Ashley Guindon was sworn in as an officer on Friday.

"The Prince William County Police Department is in deep mourning," Hudson said. "This is a sad day for everybody in this room, a sad day for law enforcement."

Ronald Williams Hamilton, 32, is accused of shooting the three police officers as they approached the front door of his house about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Hudson said.
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