Suicide news
Earlier this year, we talked about Air Force Colonel Eugene Marcus Caughey who was removed from his office as the vice commander of the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base because of charges he faced of rape, assault and adultery. His court martial was scheduled to begin on October 17th, until this news this weekend;
Sgt. Tim Stankey, the spokesman for the Colorado Springs Police Department, said officers were dispatched after receiving a report of an apparent suicide. Stankey said investigators are waiting for information from the coroner to help determine the cause of Caughey’s death, but that there is no indication his death was a homicide.
Speaking of suicide, Bobo sends us a link from the New York Daily News which claims that one third of calls to the Veterans’ Affairs Suicide hotline go unanswered because of lazy staff;
Some hotline workers handle fewer than five calls per day and leave before their shifts end, even as crisis calls have increased sharply in recent years, said Greg Hughes, the former director of the VA’s Veterans Crisis Line. Hughes said in an internal email that some crisis line staffers “spend very little time on the phone or engaged in assigned productive activity.” Coverage at the crisis line suffers “because we have staff who routinely request to leave early,” he said.
An average of 35 to 40 percent of crisis calls received in May rolled over to back-up centers where workers have less training to deal with veterans’ problems, Hughes said.
Now, I’m not saying that Colonel Caughey called the VA hotline, but the odds are, if he did, he probably wouldn’t have got the help he needed anyway.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Falls on his sword…finally….
I guess I am one of the very few that could give a rats ass. Ya, ya, ya, I know…suicide is horrible and more needs to be done…blah, blah, blah.
Every once and a while the bullet was put to good use. If dipshit here was actually guilty…just sayin.
Gee, that’s not what the ads on TV say. They’re supposed to have a 24-hour crisis hotline you can call. So it only really works when they decide to plug it in?
You can call the number any time of the day or night. If you are expecting anyone to answer it may be past time to implement the back-up plan.
My sympathy for him is minimal at best, but suicide often does a lot of collateral damage to friends and family. For their sake, I’m sorry to hear this news.
And I’d like to know more before I excoriate the people working the lines at the call center – it’s an incredibly tough job emotionally, and maybe not one people can do effectively for a normal, full work week. But there’s still a huge failure in leadership, be it the VA or Congress, if we are missing that many calls.
“My sympathy for him is minimal at best, but suicide often does a lot of collateral damage to friends and family. For their sake, I’m sorry to hear this news.”
Bingo!
He actually may have helped his family pension-wise. Had he been convicted of rape and sexual assault they well could have ended up with nothing.
That could have been a motivating factor.
Calls roll over to less well trained people? Evidently their training included how to actually answer a ringing telephone and be at their assigned duty station during duty hours. How is that less well trained?
The theoretical greater knowledge of others is irrelevant when they are not available. Are they still getting paid for all that “expertise?”
The rollover call center is probably in India.
” it’s an incredibly tough job emotionally, and maybe not one people can do effectively for a normal, full work week. But there’s still a huge failure in leadership, be it the VA or Congress, if we are missing that many calls.”
I would agree somewhat, however, they have no issue cashing that check. They can always find a job that has less stress.
No disagreement in principle, but in practice that’s taking the director of the program’s words at face value – and experience tends to make me wary of doing so with government employees in positions of management.
All I’m saying is that if a hard-working, dedicated employee had five (!) tough, emotionally draining calls in a row, I’m going to cut them some slack and be angered at the administration for not getting them enough resources to fully staff the lines.
If on the other hand it’s a slacker who can’t wait to leave the other day, dreads taking calls and maybe helping to save a life, and just wants that paycheck, then they deserve a whole lot worse than a mere firing given their line of work.
Fair enough. Personally, I could not do that job. If someone can receive 120 Hydro’s every month at the taxpayers expense, we should certainly have dedicated counselors and resources for Veterans.
I don’t blame him one bit, this is probably the best course of action facing these kind of charges. Once you are convicted of this your life as a professional is over. If I were in his shoes I would have done the same.
Even if he is innocent of the serious charges, the witch hunt would still have ruined his career and life because they would have found some stupid thing he might have said and done in the past and thrown the conduct unbecoming charge at him and there goes his pension.
My perspective on suicide is that if one wants to kill himself, he does. If one doesn’t, he doesn’t. Alcohol has a large role in whether a fleeting thought of escape through self destruction actually turns into a suicide. Unfortunately, the drunk doesn’t always get to awaken hungover the next day and say, “I almost did what?! Holy shit!”
The fucking VA…again!
That’s a scream. Cough. Cough. Ahem. I mean, how dare you make light of this serious issue!
Should have been 6969966969
Having been falsely accused myself I know how suicidal thoughts can build on you. If it were not for my wife, family, church and friends I would not be here.
My sympathies are with him and his loved ones.
Not much sympathy for someone for someone taking the easy way out instead of facing the music for their alleged crimes, but most people don’t know that when you call the national/ state, veterans, suicide/crisis line it will eventually get transferred to local LEO. I know first hand about this, and I’m glad I’ve helped many veterans out of doing something they wouldn’t live to regret. I treat them like humans and actually give a damn, most that call just need help, and they need someone to listen to them. There are ones that will do it will do it regardless. The ones that won’t ever do it won’t ever do it, and then there’s the ones that you can make the difference and save someone’s life.
Although we have no idea if they are true or false. In today’s society and in the court of public opinion as soon as you are accused of this you are guilty. In the actual courts I believe that you are guilty before you are innocent. So many people go down in a he said she said fight. The assumption seems to always go to the woman is more likely to be telling the truth over the accused male. Even if he is found innocent of sexual assault. The mil courts want to hang someone. That’s when they find a lesser charge that they can pin a conviction on. Even with a lesser charge being found guilty is enough for a dismissal(Officer equiv to a dishonorable discharge.) and confinement. Loss of pay los of pension with a federal record.
No job in the future for him.
Regardless of the reasons for the suicide, there are innocent people who will be feeling a void in their lives and I find it unacceptable to say that people deserve this…nobody does–even if their choices were bad ones.
Yeah. Charged. Not convicted by a jury of his peers. Maybe he was the cocksucker the rumors make him out to be. Maybe he was a victim himself.
To the folks that seem happy that he offed himself, I extend my personal fuck you, asshole.
That’s a completely fair point. My minimal sympathy for him is predicated on him being guilty; if he isn’t, I have enormous sympathy for him, his family and his friends.
Sometimes we get caught up in the moment and don’t think as clearly as we should about the situation.
I agree. I knew someone who was falsely accused of sexual harassment and it damn near ruined his life.
It is very easy today to be falsely accused of something very horrible. And it generally ends up being a he said she said fight. The winner is the one who is most convincing to a jury, versus being innocent or guilty.
“Yeah. Charged. Not convicted by a jury of his peers.”
He unilaterally foreclosed the possibility of conviction. Should he now benefit from that? I don’t know. What I do know is that four different women, one of whom claims she was raped by him, said that he sexually assaulted them. There were lesser additional charges, as well.