Tyler Gaffney; another “PTS caused my bad behavior” guy

Paul sends us a story from Washington State where Tyler Gaffney has been arrested for behaving badly. He tried to hold off police with an Airsoft rifle after he beat his father and threatened to use bombs on the police. Lucky for him, the police used non-lethal force to subdue him, I guess they recognized the realistic toy as such.

Gaffney later told detectives that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because of his combat experiences. He claimed that “he was a member of a super-secret Special Forces team,” who served in clandestine combat missions and had been awarded medals for his bravery.

The detectives, who both served in the military, reported that many of Gaffney’s combat stories followed the plots of popular war movies. Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Paul Stern raised concerns about “stolen valor.”

So Superior Court Judge Michael Downes has been trying to sort out whether this guy is a legit case of PTS or not, and the VA isn’t being helpful, strangely enough;

At that hearing Gaffney provided a letter from his counselor at the Everett Vet Center. The counselor confirmed that Gaffney was being treated for PTSD. The counselor said he didn’t have access to Gaffney’s personnel records from the Army. He had a file listing his time in the service and job category only.

“I am aware as his treatment provider of your concerns that he is misrepresenting his military history. Please know that I am addressing that possibility while engaging in the mental health treatment of Mr. Gaffney,” the counselor wrote.

[…]

Downes was told Wednesday that the Department of Veteran Affairs refused a subpoena prosecutors sent last month to compel Gaffney’s therapist to testify. “I would have thought the military would have been more upset about false valor than us,” Stern said. “The VA doesn’t seem to care.”

The detectives doubt his documentation, since they found exact phony certificates on line for $19.95.

Last month, a Snohomish County sheriff’s detective called the certificate into question. Sheriff’s detective Dave Bilyeu wrote in an affidavit that he believes the certificate is “a phony, purchased document.” The certificate, he wrote, was similar to other false-appearing documents found at Gaffney’s home during the standoff last year.

Bilyeu, a former U.S. Marine, discovered that similar documents are available for purchase online for $19.95 plus shipping costs.“The first certificate on this website I viewed was identical to the document Gaffney submitted on May 21, 2014,” Bilyeu wrote.

We already know that the VA doesn’t care much about stolen valor – they prefer to give care to people who didn’t earn it. They won’t scrub phony POWs from their roles and phonies jump ahead of deserving veterans. I’d get the prosecutor a FOIA on the dude, but he can only use evidence that he gets on his own, so he should just follow Hondo’s easy-to-follow instructions at our “Military Records” page and not depend on Mr. Gaffney to prove his stolen valor.

Here’s a hint for LEOs; if your suspect begins each sentence with PTSD and talks about super-secret units, he’s a phony. Those of us with PTS don’t use it as an excuse for bad behavior, and if we served in a super-secret unit, we won’t be talking about it in public to you – that’s why the unit is a secret.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit