Sergeant First Class to be charged with “sex crimes”
Yes, I know, it sounds like another Duffel Blog story, but yet another sexual assault prevention coordinator has been arrested for “sex crimes” according to Reuters;
The Army said a sergeant first class at Fort Hood, whose name was not released, was under investigation for allegations of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates.
The sergeant, a member of the Army’s III Corps, had been assigned as a sexual assault response and prevention program coordinator with a battalion in the Corps, the Pentagon said. The Army suspended the sergeant from all duties after the allegations surfaced, it said.
No charges have been filed against the soldier at this time. The investigation of the allegations is being conducted by special agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, the Pentagon said.
Of course, in order to avoid talking about the IRS scandal, the Benghazi failures and the seizures of Associated Press’ phone records, this is the story that leads most of the news programs this morning. The other day, a Lieutenant Colonel who led the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention program was arrested for assaulting a woman in a parking lot in Crystal City, and I’ll concede that’s news, but this is just a distraction to lead the morning shows with this story – it’s a sergeant first class at a single military base in remote Texas. I’m not trying to diminish the crime, if the charges are true, it’s serious and he should fry – but it’s not so important to distract from the White House’s current scandals.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Media
HUH? WHAT? A SEX SCANDAL IN THE MILITARY? *YAWN*….
“Secretary Hagel needs to act swiftly to re-examine sexual assault services across the department to ensure that these disturbing betrayals of trust are ended,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
Betrayals of trust? A member of Congress talking about betrayals of trust? Murray ought to google “Congress sex scandals” or “Congress corruption” to learn about betrayals of trust. I’m not downplaying sexual assauls of any kind (well, the way that stuff is defined nowadays, maybe I ought to), but the military is, in many ways, a microcosm of the larger society and this spotlight is a bit much. Rape, unwanted touching, indecent exposure, child porn—where it occurs, string the SOBs up by their genitalia. This sergeant is UNDER INVESTIGATION. As horrid as it may sound to Murray and others, the allegation may be groundless. I don’t know but my point is, neither does she.
SFC Perv’s sexual harassment training came with an activity book…
I’m starting to think Sexual Assault Prevention Training causes sexual assaults.
Or as the MSM said re their blackout of the Gosnell murders: “Its just a local crime story”
They are all Winston Smith.
@4. You may be on to something there. Would you take a firearms safety course from an instructor who never fired a gun? How about a lifeguard course from a non-swimmer? Yes, this could be it. Some SAPT instructors are just getting practical experience! Perfect.
Another horndog gets caught with his pants down. So what’s new?
Sorry, still ain’t gonna bury the real story.
Not to make light of sexual assualt or abuse or to turn this into an enlisted against officers argument , why did the big cheeses in DOD wait until an enlisted man had an issue to take action.
Wasn’t it just last week that the Air Force OFFICER in charge of their program got his ass beaten by his transexual of choice.
I also have issue with some of the reported numbers. Depending on the set of numbers presented, some form of sexual assualt/abuse is taking place anywhere from ~75 to upwards of 500 incidents per day, each and every day. I just find those numbers too large and I’m wondering if we are seeing something akin to the Salem witch trials with everyone that has received some form of possitive leadership, i.e. being told no when they want to hear yes and vice versa, getting on the band wagon so they have some level of revenge. Couple of weeks ago when I was at my most recent VA appointment, my doctor asked if I had ever been sexually abused or harassed. Had to tell her only by my wife last night.
COB–put it this way, if they applied the same standard to those little horndogs in our colleges and universities as they to do our folks in uniform, well…you get the point.
But that’s something the MSM and leftards won’t tell you.
He must not have taken the online training course.
Let’s face it. The military is sex-obssessed. Next question.
They should change the acronymn to:
Sexually
Assault
People
Routinely
Crotchety Old Bubblehead: I’m guessing the temporal proximity caused the SECDEF to speak up. When you see 2 such incidents hit the press in about a 1-week span, well, in his position you’d best say something – or you’re going to be accused of “ignoring the problem”.
Ex-PH2: the military is composed largely of individuals between the ages of 18 and 30. Of course they’re “obsessed” with sex. Kids that age generally are.
“Are you skull-f—ing me boy?” I’m still not certain what that means but I do clearly recall that question being asked by a drill sergeant decades ago.
Understand all Hondo, but, is there an actual problem or are we seeing the effects of the wording and frequency of the surveys such that the feminists and other special interest groups are getting the specific answers they are fishing for vice the right answer. This also has the typical inept leadership style of “if one person screws up, we screw everyone” vice demonstrating some real leadership and addressing the specific individual and then addressing the root cause, i.e. your #14 comment (18 to 30 somethings that are young, dumb and full of you know what).
Pandering? This isn’t your run of the mill sergeant gets a bit too handy with the lower enlisted while getting his drink on in the barracks. Was he running a prostitution ring?
Crotchety Old Bubblehead: won’t argue that point. And the fact that sexual “harassment” is often determined based on “victim perception” of actions vice a “reasonable person” standard doesn’t help.
BohicaTwentyTwo: I think he’s probably accused of pressuring one or more folks to provide sexual favors to someone else. Pandering under the UCMJ is defined here:
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/134138.htm
It doesn’t necessarily have to involve money or prostitution.
You know….you force a guy to think about and talk about sex enough….of course he’s going to snap!
If this individual is guilty, hammer them.
Every time something like this happens I die a little inside knowing that another death by Powerpoint class is coming.
Green Thumb: agreed. If the guy did what’s alleged – and at this point, we don’t really know if he did any or all of the things of which he’s accused – he needs to enjoy a nice, long stay at the Leavenworth Crossbar Hotel.
So glad I’m retiring soon.
SAPR training is already 8 hours..not including DL and leader training. I can only imagine what it will be kicked up to now.
[…] Sexual Assault Prevention Training causes sexual assault, apparently. […]
Until guilt is laid at the feet of the predators, and they are actually PUNISHED (I favor the whipping post followed by castration), this will continue to happen. Prison doesn’t do any good for crimes like this.
@26
Prison doesn’t do any good for crimes like this.
You are absolutely correct. More training is not what’s needed. People already KNOW not to do this shit. “Rehabilitation” doesn’t work.
There’s something wrong in the heads of people that think this shit is ok. Their brains are broken. They need to be locked away where they can’t do it anymore. Ever.
The report on the news this noon is that the sergeant had assaulted two subordinates and forced a third into prostitution.
If this is true, then nail him to a wall. I have a horsewhip I’d like him to meet.
@2 I live in Washginton State and we conservatives hate Sen. Patty Murray. The trouble up here is the “left” side of the state with its population size controls the voting outcome. Otherwise she would have been out on her ugly ass a long time ago. Her comments are typical Murray helping the
administration by putting her face in the news to deflect attention from whatever Obama called her for help with. In any organization, the military, the private sector and need I even say congress itself (breaking in interns) will always have to deal with sexual assault or inappropriate sexual behaviors of all kinds. As long as little boys and little girls get together, wherever and whenever, they are going to do what men and woman do. Some will do it right and some will do it in an inappropriate manner. But is this morning news worthy considering what the White House and several federal departments have looming over their heads. I say no.
@29 with a national forcible rape rate of 26.8 per 100,000 resulting in 83,425 victims of forcible rate this is a fairly serious issue for the nation because every 6 minutes someone is being forcibly raped….when you add in sexual assault which is a fairly open term as others have pointed out the number is far higher than 26.8/100k and with 80% of the victims of sexual assault under the age of 30 it’s a significant issue for any population where the average age is going to hover just under 30.
When you add in a rigid command structure that is pre-disposed to protecting it’s reputation versus protecting the individual elements in the organization you have very poor social policy or in the case of the military poor unit cohesion.
I’m not stating that it’s more prevalent in the military, I am suggesting that based on statistical population markers it’s entirely possible that it is more prevalent in the military as a function of population age. Therefore protecting the young men and women who are tasked with protecting the nation from unwanted sexual assaults and forcible rapes seems newsworthy to me…discussing it might be uncomfortable but most important discussions usually are difficult.
PintoNag: unfortunately, the 8th Amendment probably would prohibit your suggested punishment.
And I have to differ. Prison works – if you keep the individual there long enough. The last caveat, unfortunately, is often ignored or short-circuited by early release.
@31 My problem with caging any form of sexual predator is that they continue to practice it in prison. So they do their crime on the street, get busted, do their crime in jail, get out, and then go back to doing their crime on the street. Prison doesn’t stop this type of crime, it simply puts it behind walls. We’re being way too easy on this type of crime. It used to carry the death penalty. I think it should again.
@32 – I agree. I also presume that more often than not, predators often spend time locked away scheming on how to get over the system and come up with new inventive ways to re-offend when they get out, too.
As for the SFC, I wonder if any heads other heads besides his will roll within the chain-of-command. Perhaps we should be asking “Who else knew this was going on?”
…that is to say “I wonder if any other heads (within the chain of command) will roll besides his?”
@USMCE8Ret,
My wife worked as a prison psychologist for a while (rough job, make fun of state workers all you want, but she put in a lot of hours in a fairly dangerous environment). From the stories she told me, most of the sexual predators spent their energy trying to hide in prison. They aren’t very high up on the inmate totem pole, which means once they’re found to be a rapist or whatever, they’ve got both the COs and the other inmates to worry about.
I wouldn’t say there’s much hope of rehabilitating them (although the wife would be a better one to ask that question), but I don’t think prison is a cakewalk for them either.
Of course, this is one data point. One psychologist who worked at one prison (although she did see a good chunk of the mentally ill folks who went into her state system, since it was a reception prison).
KenW
This problem has been brewing since the Tailhook jihad. From about that point onward, every male military leader’s reputation (thus career) has been hostage to the whim of any recalcitrant female non-hacker among their subordinates. This is why I have taken to counsel junior officers to treat their female peers and subordinates like the high-risk commodities they really are (until reliably proven otherwise), and maintain two-man integrity for all of their social contacts, counseling sessions and work-placed interaction with females. We have reached the point where any military justice convening authority who smells a rat and fails to prosecute even low-rent female complaints at Court Martial is laying his/her carrer on the line.
@35 – Point taken. In spite of their seclusion and not being high in the social heirarchy while in lockup, my bets are they still find more inventive ways to offend. They all do. I don’t think corrections in this country focuses too much on rehabilitation anyway, much less sexual predators.
@30 I agree with you and nothing in my post was meant to make light of sexual assault. Just that when men and woman are together in any situation, these things sometimes happen and sadly, sometimes, with terrible results. Also I acknowledge that it is women who, far and away, suffers the worst in these situations. The age factor you referred to does come into play and may or may not make the military a place of higher instances of sexual harassment/assault but the statistics you report support it would be so in any work place. Along with the command oriented structure you mentioned which the military is based upon. A structure which when I was in, always, wanted to keep things “in house”. Not for the best of the person involved but for the sake of the command structure itself. I agree completely that those protecting our nation should be able to do so in a personally secure environment. I do apologize to anyone ever harassed or assaulted or intimidated if my post was read that I was making light of their plight. As far as its being newsworthy, it is. All said, I concede I was out of line in my post.
@38 I did not mean to imply you were out of line, I just meant I think that the issue bears reporting.
I agree wholeheartedly that current events in the white house, the AG’s office, and the IRS are serious and significant.
I just meant to indicate in my opinion this wasn’t just another shiny object to distract us, but another failure of leadership.
@39. As a Vietnam veteran when I served it was a, by and large, sexually separated military. I believe, IMHO, it was better that way. As a young troop it was easier to deal with a mere thought in my mind versus an actual sight in my eyes. I know I am old school and my opinions on this are long outdated. It was just easier serving without the distraction that I imagine it could be to both our young men and woman today. This is said with no disrespect to the heroic woman who have and are serving.