Preliminary Investigation of Veteran Deaths In El Paso County, Colorado

by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.Equal Justice Foundation

AbstractIt is sickening to find an 87-year-old World War II and Korean War veteran with no

known priors arrested on a dogmatic charge of domestic violence, i.e., no actual violencewas alleged, just two months prior to his death. Yet that is but one example of what isuncovered by this investigation.

Disabled veterans are arrested over and over, often without any charges stated. Theyfind their criminal records make it impossible for them to reintegrate into society aftertheir discharge. Often their marriages disintegrate and their children are taken fromthem.

The result is too often homelessness and, eventually, death.

By documenting these patterns I hope to effect change so that veterans may live outtheir lives as productive, independent citizens, a right they have certainly earned.

Without reform it will continue to be a crime to be a veteran.

Part I — IntroductionBehaviors characteristic of the aftereffects of severe trauma or injuries make the

sufferer subject to the attention of law enforcement. Unfortunately, once in the justicesystem they tend to be squashed like bugs by overzealous, ideologically-drivenprosecutors and Star Chamber courts. Even behaviors once considered normal cannow result in a criminal conviction that makes it virtually impossible for the individual tofind a job or live a “normal” life. All too often the result is homelessness and an earlydeath.

It is a tragedy that these “bugs” are all too often our military men and women sufferingfrom the horrors of war. This essay attempts to track what happens to many of them.

At least 2.5 million men and women have been deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistanconflicts. Estimates are that somewhere between 250,000 (10%) and 450,000 (18%) ofthese veterans currently suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Experiencefrom Vietnam and previous wars make it clear those numbers will increase tosomewhere between 750,000 (30%) and 1,250,000 (50%) with time. Many also sufferfrom traumatic brain injuries (TBI), the signature wound of these conflicts. Totalwounded in these conflicts probably exceeds 1 million, commonly limbs lost to IEDs.Even without wounds or combat experience it is often difficult for veterans to adapt tocivilian life once they are discharged and often left impoverished, unemployed, lacking

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any decent health benefits, homeless, traumatized mentally and physically, strugglingwith depression, thoughts of suicide, and facing divorce and loss of their children.

All of these factors tend to bring veterans to the attention of law enforcement. Andthat ignores the additional focus of the Department of Homeland Security in projects likeOperation Vigilant Eagle that characterizes veterans as extremists and potentialdomestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or sufferingfrom the psychological effects of war.” As a result when police receive calls involvingveterans they all-too-frequently respond with SWAT teams and armored vehicles.Usually that panics the veteran and the situation escalates. Add to this the fact thatwarrants have almost become a thing of the past. In monitoring veteran arrests over thepast five years 10% are booked into the county jail without any charges being listed orunder the arcane “other chargeable statutes.”

Once booked prosecutors then add on, or “stack” the charges against a veteran toforce them to accept a plea bargain (plead guilty). Threats, intimidation, lies, and eventorture are used if the veteran resists signing his life away. And if the veteran doesn’thave close friends or relatives who can or will bail him out of jail, he will be kept thereuntil he either agrees to accept the plea bargain or his case comes on for trial six monthsor more down the road.

Prosecutorial misfeasance and malfeasance are not limited to the defendant. Storyafter story has emerged of prosecutors coercing, threatening, and bullying witnesses(“victims”) in these cases.

And these veterans are dying

Suicide is the leading cause of death among active-duty military with an average ofone per day. The VA estimates that ~22 veterans a day of all ages commit suicide andthat estimate is probably far too low. For example, in the case of our county coroner hehas no way of knowing the corpus brought to him is a veteran and, of course, notreported as such.

Ofttimes the veterans commit suicide by driving into a tree, bridge abutment, etc., orin some other “accident” that the coroner mislabels either from lack of information or tosave the family grief.

Many veterans crawl into a bottle and drink themselves to death or overdose on drugsfor escape. There are also many cases of premature deaths in veterans that are linked tothe multitude of prescription drugs they are often prescribed. Of particular note are thefatalities associated with both legal and illegal drugs, notably opioids, veterans take forpain and relief from the multiple symptoms of wounds, injuries, PTSD, and TBI.

The death of young veterans by heart attack is a problem that goes far beyond thispreliminary study. The problem was reviewed by Rappaport (2012) based on theresearch of neurologist Fred Baughman, Jr. M.D. Dr. Baughman refers to these cases asSoldiers Dead In Bed and as of September 2014 he has tabulated over 400 suchcases. As he notes, this is far from a complete list and the problem continues unabated.Seroquel (an antipsychotic) is the drug most frequently linked to these deaths but otherantipsychotic and antidepressants have also been identified in such cases particularly

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when Paxil (antidepressant) and Klonopin (benzodiazepine) are prescribed and takentogether. And the negative effects of these drugs are magnified when dosage is suddenlyinterrupted, as for example when the veteran is thrown in jail.

(Thompson and Bridier, 2013) and other studies demonstrate that homeless andmarginally housed people have much higher mortality and shorter life expectancy.Veteran arrest data show a clear correlation between repeated arrests andhomelessness.

While there are many statistics the outcome for veterans trapped in the justicesystem is rarely examined. It is also proving remarkably difficult to track down about thedeaths of individual veterans after they have been arrested.

Veteran arrests and courts

A basic purpose of my study is to determine how well, if at all, veterans are able toreintegrate in to society after contact with the civilian justice system. An objective is tofind what might be done to help them through the process and back into a productive liferather than the homelessness and early death that is too often apparent with the currentsystem.

In the period 2008-2010 the Equal Justice Foundation promoted the first veterancourt in Colorado and helped with enabling legislation for such courts. However, theveteran court began essentially as a drug court, a mistake, and requires a veteran toplead guilty (accept a plea bargain) before admittance, an even greater mistake as itleaves the veteran with a criminal conviction on their record. Further, the veteran courtwas established as a pilot project and is not equipped to, nor does it deal with mostveterans in our justice system.

In 2008 no one had any idea how many veterans were being arrested, or on whatcharges in the military bastion of El Paso County, Colorado, where five major bases arelocated. With some persuasion the sheriff and his staff modified the intake program at thecentral Criminal Justice Center (CJC) that is used by all police agencies and militarybases in the county to ask at the time of booking whether the detainee had ever servedin the military.

In mid-2010 the sheriff’s office began producing and distributing a daily veteran arrestreport via email to interested parties. Tabulation of those daily reports by the EqualJustice Foundation began in mid-July 2010 and currently more than 14,0000 arrests ofover 8,500 veterans have been logged. Sadly, of those the veteran court has only dealtwith perhaps 300 veterans.

The intent of my study is not only to track how many veterans are arrested and onwhat charges, but also to determine the effects and outcomes of the arrests for as manyveterans as possible by correlating the arrest data with whatever archival data isavailable from the state courts, county coroner, newspaper reports, Internet searches,and other sources.

This portion of the study attempts to determine how many veterans die in what time frame following their arrests and from what causes.

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Coming homeThe endless wars of the 21st Century

have shown modern battlefieldequipment is capable of saving soldierslives and the actual numbers offatalities have been comparatively low.

Conversely, the number of physicallyand mentally wounded veterans, whonow survive injuries that would haveproved fatal in previous conflicts, hasoverwhelmed a Veterans Administration(VA) bogged down in bureaucracy,corruption, and incompetence.Compounding the problems, the VA hasclearly demonstrated it is quiteunprepared to face an onslaught ofpsychiatric cases added to the largenumbers of physically woundedreturning from these conflicts.

In her excellent book They WereSoldiers: How the Wounded ReturnFrom America’s Wars — The Untold Story Ann Jones provides a vivid summary (p.117) of what wives, girlfriends, and family often face when soldiers come home:

“...[A] moody combat soldier just returned from the war and not very well. He issullen and silent. He isolates himself, locks himself in the bedroom for hours on end,or disappears in the car, sometimes for days. He drinks too much. He drives too fastor too slow down the middle of the road. He explodes. He throws things, punchesholes in the walls, smashes dishes, shakes the children. Or he sits on the couch allday, staring at the flat screen TV. He storms out. He storms in. Demands sex.Refuses it. Refuses even the touch of a hand of a wife or child. The kids are too noisy,too wary, too fearful, too clingy. They bring back memories of Iraqi kids andAfghanistan kids, always in the road.”

And he has guns!

Many will recognize that today all of this behavior constitutes domestic violence andabuse under current laws.

Jones also points out that many wives of active duty military men are often girls barelyout of their teens who married not long before their husbands were deployed. So shescarcely knows her soldier/husband, and now she has a baby. Often he was home onlylong enough to make another baby before being deployed again, and again, and... Asthe number of tours mount the odds increase that he will break down.

Someone calls the police seeking help. Instead, law enforcement makes theproblems infinitely worse.

Burdens the veteran bears when he returns home.

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Divorce often follows a veteran’s homecoming, too often accompanied by charges ofdomestic violence, driving under the influence, shoplifting, and child abuse. In themaelstrom he loses his home and children.

If he is lucky the military will give him a medical discharge. All too often, however, thesoldiers erratic behavior will lead to a less than honorable discharge and the loss of allbenefits. Even with an honorable discharge the Veterans Administration likely provideslittle, if any timely and effective help.

The road to homelessness often passes through the county jail

First, it is critical to understand that I am not being critical of our county jail or thesheriff and his deputies that run it. They have been wholeheartedly cooperative in thisproject, provide a separate pod for almost all veterans in the jail at any given time (~150),and do what they can to provide meds and mental health care for inmates. And I havealso been impressed with frontline police officers and patrol deputies I have encountereddoing this research, many of whom are veterans themselves.

Conversely, I note that the manifestations of veteran’s hidden wounds often result intheir taking a very hostile and aggressive attitude with these officers, who are simplytrying to enforce the laws; however insane those laws may be. That, of course, worsensthe veterans position and often makes it impossible for the officer to do anything butarrest them.

There is little question that many, if not most of these veteran arrests stronglycorrelate with their military service. In many cases it is relatively easy to establishcausation as well by simply enumerating the number of combat tours a veteran hasmade and how many times they’ve been blown up or wounded. Many times the loss of alimb makes the wounds obvious. However, the trauma is often the result of a sexualassault, explosions, or accident and their wounds are hidden demons lurking in theirbrains.

Having served their country veterans naively believe the courts are fair and honest.

The veterans problems begin to multiply after they are booked and move into the“justice” system. Once formally booked into jail prosecution is turned over to the districtattorney. Unfortunately, these cases usually end up the hands of a “baby” DA, whocommonly is fresh out of law school.

Aside from the fact that I rarely meet any attorney who has the education I wouldexpect of a college sophomore, all too often these assistant district attorneys are feministideologues who regard all veterans as “trained killers” who must be imprisoned at least,and destroyed at best. And the police and DA’s can legally lie!

In any case, however, “baby” DA’s don’t get promoted if they don’t get convictions sothere is considerable pressure to quickly get a plea bargain. I am also told that caseslacking merit, that should be dismissed, are taken to trial to provide training in trialprocedures for these neophyte prosecutors. Damn the consequences for the veteran,who often faces a lifetime of poverty due to a criminal conviction.

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The chances of a veteran learning the truth about what a plea bargain, i.e.,conviction, will mean to their future is virtually zero unless they can find and afford anhonest, competent attorney. Too often that must be done while they are incarcerated,further limiting their chances for justice.

All too frequently the veteran naively takes a plea bargain, believing the lies that this faux conviction won’t hurt them.

The war against veterans

No consideration appears to be given by the justice system to the fact that a criminalconviction(s) will, in fact, cause lifetime problems. In many cases the veteran becomesvirtually unemployable for the rest of their lives except in the most menial orunder-the-table positions.

Often they cannot get student loans and lose their military service educationalbenefits. They cannot rent an apartment and are ineligible for public housing. Frequentlythey cannot even visit relatives who live in such housing or the whole family will beevicted.

Typically it is impossible for them to obtain any type of professional license and theylose any such license they might already have, e.g., teachers certificate, medical doctor,pilot or commercial drivers license, etc., and they cannot work with hazardous materialsor explosives.

Almost always they lose their security clearances and commonly all VA benefits,including medical, and often cannot obtain any other medical insurance. They aresubject to state and federal felony charges if they are even around a weapon orammunition and, obviously, cannot become police or firemen.

To further increase their despair and hopelessness child “protection” services (CPS)may take their children from them. In sum this constitutes a war against veterans.

All this because they served their country and believed the lies of a prosecutor.

The probation terms of their conviction (plea bargain) often keep them in El PasoCounty and they can’t go home where they might have family and community support. Alltoo frequently their drivers license has been taken from them yet they must continue todrive to attend probation and court hearings, go to treatment programs, get urineanalyses (UA’s), get to their job if they are lucky enough to have one, or simply getgroceries. When stopped by police they go back to jail for driving under restraint.

Their downward spiral continues...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

A plethora of draconian criminal laws enacted since the Vietnam war lie in wait forveterans. The two most deadly are the War on Drugs and the Violence AgainstWomen Act (VAWA).

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There are, of course, many veterans who are undeniably knowingly and intentionallycriminal. But often these miscreants learn to game the justice system leaving the war-and accident-damaged veterans to pay the price for our misguided laws anddysfunctional courts.

Colorado, and several other states, have now moved to legalize marijuana. So some,but far from all, of the disastrous consequences of the War on Drugs have beenmitigated. However, VAWA and the state laws driven by that ill-conceived legislation is adisaster for veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumaticbrain injuries (TBI), as well the pain and misery of physical wounds and sexual trauma.

Experience has demonstrated that every manifestation of PTSD, as outlined here, is“domestic violence” under current all-encompassing draconian laws enacted in responseto VAWA. And available arrest data make it evident that the problems veterans faceunder these laws do not decrease with age or distance.

At the end of five years of collecting veteran arrest data what stands out is aprogression from PTSD/TBI — > Arrest — > Conviction — > Homelessness — >Early Death. Current data suggest that once embarked on this path there is usually noway out.

A basic objective of this study is to try and find ways to get off this road to oblivion thatso many veterans are on.

But ways out can’t be found until the road is mapped.

Part II — Tracking veteran mortality

Veteran survival

The most negative possible outcome of an arrest is that the veteran dies closelyfollowing the most recent one. However, with available data it is not possible todetermine directly the impact arrests have on the veteran’s mortality, or whether thearrest(s) and the cause of their death, i.e., substance abuse, were simply two sides ofthe same problem.

The data do allow a time correlation, however. The present tabulation finds 1% of theveterans jailed at least once during the five years of this study have since died. However,~3% of the veterans who were known to have been admitted to the veteran trauma courtdied. The sample size is far too small to draw any conclusions but the data do suggestbeing admitted to the veteran trauma court is not providing sufficient relief from thedemons that drive veterans to an early death. It is also likely that those admitted to theveteran court have more severe problems than most veterans and that contributes totheir increased mortality.

Ideally, after an arrest a veteran pays the penalty for any crime they may havecommitted or, in the alternative, they are found innocent or their charges are dismissed.The veteran then returns to a productive civilian life, or to his military unit.

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Unfortunately, available data suggests that is all too rarely the case. More than half(54%) of the veterans in this study were first arrested prior to July 2010 and availabledata, summarized in Table A, suggests that, with the exception of suicides, veterans arein the justice system ±6 years before their demise although the spread is from a few daysto some 30 years (Table A). Excluding suicides, 75% of them are known to have multiplearrests.

It is also quite clear that many veterans who have initially adjusted to civilian life later,usually in mid-life, may develop PTSD or effects from an earlier TBI that bring them tothe attention of law enforcement even though they may have no, or minimal priorrecords. Thus, the problems being addressed won’t go away for these veterans or forsociety, as reflected in this preliminary review where the veteran’s ages at time of firstknown arrest range from 18 to 87 and at time of death range from 21 to 87 shortlyfollowing their first or latest arrest (Table A).

Limitations on the data

In order to determine veteran deaths possibly related to their arrest the El PasoCounty Coroner was contacted in late 2013 and in early 2014 data on all known deathsin the county between 2011 and the end of January 2014 was provided to the EqualJustice Foundation. An initial correlation run in 2014 against the 132 deaths in thecoroner’s records first provided found 13 veterans who had died within a month to lessthan two years after their last arrest.

le A Summary of veteran deaths by manner and number

Manner of Death

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cident (Table 1) 12 (1) 2 1 <1 1 52 207 22 39 6

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tural (Table 3) 11 (0) 2 0 2 4 89 326 50 55 7

bstance abuse (Table 4) 18 (3) 5 6 <<1 1 83 358 29 50 6

icide (Table 5) 11 (1) 0 7 <<1 1 9 293 25 38 6

known (Table 6) 24 (2) 2 10 <1 10 84 356 21 56 8

tals 83 (8) 12 27

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Digital record keeping by the coroner greatly improved during 2013. By April 2015

spreadsheets supplied by the El Paso County Coroner initially contained 9,975 deaths.1

From those a total of 83 veterans of the ~8,200 arrested at least once between July 2010and April 2015 were found dead. Given that there must be a time lag between an arrestand a veteran’s death this list will certainly grow with time.

Colorado law requires that the county coroner be notified about certain deaths suchas a violent or sudden, unexpected demise. In these cases the coroner must thendetermine the cause and manner of death. Obviously many citizen deaths do not requirethe coroner’s attention, e.g., the citizen died of natural causes resulting from old age,known cancers, etc. However, if the veteran’s death is related to their arrest or militaryservice it is quite likely they will die young, i.e., under 50, and of causes that do bringthem to the coroner’s attention. But clearly veteran deaths are seriously undersampled

by this method.2

The coroner has no direct way to know if a body brought to him is that of a veteran ornot. It is only through cross-correlations such as this one that it can be determinedwhether the corpus may be that of a veteran. But this study only correlates thoseveterans who have been arrested in El Paso County with the coroner’s data. A veteranwho dies but has never been arrested in El Paso County, or was only arrested before thisstudy began in July 2010, will not be included in our results.

There is also a limit on available arrest data. The number of arrests for these veteranshas presently only been tabulated from July 2010 although 44 (53%) of the 83 veteranswho died are known to have been arrested one or more times before this study began.

How veteran deaths are tabulated

The manner of death of veterans known to have been arrested and booked into thecounty jail at least once during the study period has been separated into six categories.Known deaths in each category are summarized in Table A.

The coroner does not use “substance abuse” as a Manner of Death but where it wasclear that the cause of death involved drugs or alcohol I've used that in preference to theCoroner's classification as it is known that drugs and alcohol are in common usage byveterans. It is also known that many veterans use drugs deliberately to end their lives so“substance abuse” is commonly a form of suicide. Taken together, substance abuse andsuicide form the largest group (35%) of veterans in the study to date.

Where the coroner listed No Data or Pending as the Manner of Death that has beenlisted here as Unknown. Likely many of those cases will be updated as more databecomes available from the coroner or other sources.

1. Unidentified human remains and unnamed babies examined by the coroner were removedfrom the spreadsheets to allow correlation with the arrest data.

2. Note that a correlation between the EPSO veteran arrest data and the coroner’s data (andany other data) is entirely dependent on finding matching names and birth dates. In somecases an additional check on sex was used. I also had problems with correlating names withsuffixes with the coroner’s data and that problem may not have been entirely solved.

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Because I am dependent on archival data provided by the coroner this tabulationshould not be regarded as complete and may not be representative. Veterans may havebeen killed or died while deployed after their arrest, expired in another county or statethat we have not tracked, or their death was not investigated by the coroner. Also, theirdeaths may be related to personal factors only indirectly related to their military serviceor arrest(s), e.g., divorce, car accident, etc. The article Death of A Soldier examines onesuch case but there are many others.

If there is a connection between a veteran’s death and their arrest then their deathmust follow the arrest within some reasonable time period. Further, a veteran whosedeath occurs five or more years after their last arrest would not show in our presentcompilation.

In the present sample veteran’s deaths occurred from just a few days after their lastarrest to a maximum of two-and-a-half years. The generally close correlation in timesuggests a direct link for many cases. In some instances the veteran’s arrest wouldalmost seem to be a cri de coeur for help.

While present data are inadequate to formulate a quantitative statistical analysissome initial trends are apparent.

Major factors

Post traumatic stress disorder

In two decades of observing behaviors associated with post traumatic stress inveterans it is clear that PTSD encompasses a broad spectrum of behaviors. These aredescribed in complex terms in DSM V (p. 271-280) that are not always clear as to whatconstitutes post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To hopefully improve understanding Ihave tabulated the associated conditions I’ve witnessed in veterans:

• Sleeplessness (probably the most common and the first thing one notices);

• Dissociation from actual events and no memory of them is characteristic;

• Nightmares often accompanied by kicking and fighting in one's sleep;

• Impotence in males;

• Irrational anger or irritability accompanied by emotional or violent outbursts;

• Anxiety and a need for unconditional control of almost every situation in order to feelsafe;

• Panic attacks and hyperventilating;

• Social withdrawal and fear of crowded places (often will not leave house or goshopping until early morning hours);

• Difficulty concentrating, focusing, or remembering (resembles short-term memoryloss);

• Hypervigilance, often expressed as a fear of crowds and a need to do areconnaissance before entering an area or building, e.g. WalMart;

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• Flashbacks to the event(s); and

• An exaggerated and often violent startle response.

Every manifestation of PTSD listed above has resulted in veterans being arrested, jailed, and convicted, often multiple times, and usually for “domestic violence.”

As the DSM recognizes, there is considerable comorbidity between PTSD and othermental disorders, among them schizophrenia. PTSD may also exacerbate otherconditions, e.g., bipolar, depression, anxiety, and is often associated with substanceabuse and suicidal ideation.

It is also apparent from the arrest records that behavior characteristic of PTSD maybe episodic, disappearing or only mildly present for long periods of time until some eventtriggers another episode.

The DSM-5 (p. 277) also notes that for older individuals declining health, worseningcognitive functioning, and social isolation may aggravate PTSD symptoms. That is quiteapparent in aging veterans.

In her book Legal Abuse Syndrome Dr. Karin Huffer has documented how repeatedand prolonged contact with the justice system can itself be a cause of post traumaticstress. Based on her research I assume that any veteran with two or more arrests suffersfrom PTSD even if no symptoms were present before.

In the present study of veteran mortality it seems reasonable to assume that all theveterans listed suffered from some level of PTSD. No doubt many of them also hadtraumatic brain injuries as well.

Recidivism

The arrest data make it clear that ofttimes, perhaps predominantly, PTSDexperienced within a year or two of the traumatic event(s) may be mild and fade away,only to reoccur, possibly more severely, in the veterans later years.

Injured veterans behavior is also complicated by the common presence of braininjuries. And brain injuries are known to be associated with early onset of dementia andAlzheimers that also negatively affect the veterans behavior as they grow older.

Since these conditions frequently appear or reappear years, and even decades afterthe initial trauma with the same or greater likelihood of bringing the veteran to theattention of law enforcement the standard definition of recidivism is meaningless inmany cases. Rather it would appear that in evaluating veteran behavior leading to anarrest we are looking at episodic events occurring at indeterminate intervals.

Research into triggers for these episodes would likely find ways to reduce rearrestsand early deaths of veterans. It is also evident that a sample period of just five years isquite inadequate to determine the likely periodicity of these recurring episodes.

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Gender

While 9% (746 of 8,422) of the veterans arrested during the study period are femaleonly 5 (6%, 2 from substance abuse and 3 cause unknown) have died. No femaleveteran died from natural causes in this preliminary study.

Homelessness

Veterans are three times more likely to become homeless than the generalpopulation. (Thompson and Bridier, 2013) and other studies demonstrate thathomeless and marginally housed people have much higher mortality and shorter lifeexpectancy. Thus it is to be expected that the death of veterans in this study wouldcommonly be associated with homelessness.

Arrest data provided by the sheriff includes the veteran’s address from which it isoften, but not always possible to determine the veteran is homeless or staying in ashelter such as the Salvation Army at the time of their arrest. In Table A I have listed thenumber of veterans who were known to have been homeless at some point before theirdeath.

Available data show that only 12 of the 83 (15%) dead veterans were homeless atsome point. However, 5 of the 18 (28%) who died from substance abuse were homelessat some point before their death. It is known from other studies that there is a closecorrelation between substance abuse and homelessness irrespective of whether theyare veterans; so this is not a surprise.

It is certain that this tabulation severely underestimates the number who lacked astable, permanent residence as many veterans in difficulty stay with friends, relatives,girlfriends, or sleep in their car or camper.

It is also worth noting that none of the suicide cases were known to be homelessbefore their death. But the significance of these observations awaits further data forsupport or denial.

Feminists call it domestic violence, I call it post traumatic stress

There appears to be a consistent relationship between veteran mortality and chargesof domestic violence. 30% of all veteran arrests tabulated to date include a charge ofdomestic violence and 33% of the veterans who later died had at least one DV chargeagainst them. Also, in many cases the veteran died within a few days, or less than amonth after their arrest for domestic violence.

It is also of interest to note that no veterans who died from natural causes had beenarrested for domestic violence (Table 3). Conversely, 45% of the veterans whocommitted suicide (Table 5) or died from substance abuse (Table 4) had been chargedwith domestic violence.

Every manifestation of PTSD is “domestic violence” under current laws. Irrationalanger constitutes emotional abuse and harassment. Punching holes in the wall, fightingand kicking in his sleep, the exaggerated startle response that knocks her or one of thekids halfway across the room, breaking dishes or furniture, self medicating with alcohol

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or drugs so he can sleep but he is a mean drunk, choking her, and on and on allconstitute “domestic violence” under current laws.

Feminists, of course, are screaming that we must cage this monster as if cures forPTSD and TBI can be legislated or incarceration will improve the veteran’s injuries. Inreality the veteran’s only real crime is going to war for his country.

Numerous studies demonstrate that rates of female-perpetrated violence are higherthan male-perpetrated with current ratios at 28% female-perpetrated versus 22%male-perpetrated with the remainder resulting from mutual combat between the partners.Unfortunately there is a very high probability that if a male veteran is being abused andthe police are called, he is the one who will be arrested and too often falsely convicted.

In my tabulation of arrests for domestic violence roughly half carry no charge of actualinterpersonal violence. Demographic studies show at least 40% of these charges arefalse. The emotional burden a veteran then carries is greatly increased by having beenfalsely or unjustly accused.

Add to this the fact that in custody disputes or contentious divorces veterans arefrequently falsely charged with child or sexual abuse of their children to gain anadvantage in court. The veteran’s nightmares are then multiplied by child “protective”services, particularly if he has TBI.

There can be little question that the emotional impact of domestic violence chargesand the draconian penalties imposed cause a great deal of harm without discerniblevalue or deterrence.

In this fashion we have made being a veteran a crime.

Then there are the many veterans who find they are not the father of the woman’schildren but the court is requiring them to pay child support, often as the result of adefault judgment. And if they don’t pay they go to jail. Paternity fraud is a fun andprofitable game when the vets away.

Domestic violence charges frequently amount to an unbearable burden for the veteran, who seeks release any way he can.

Details of manner of deathThe details of each known veteran death are tabulated in six separate tables that are

presented as linked PDF files. It is assumed these tables will grow with time andperiodically be updated.

The tabulation is limited to (1) veterans who were booked into the El Paso CountyCriminal Justice Center (CJC) at least once after June 2010, and (2) later died andended up in the morgue of the El Paso County Coroner.

Brief preliminary comments are given describing what can reasonably be gleanedfrom the very limited data currently available.

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Accident

Veteran deaths by a presumed accident based on the coroner’s determination of themanner of death are detailed in (Table 1). However, anecdotal evidence is abundant thatmany veterans commit suicide by running into a bridge abutment or tree at high speed,drown themselves, etc. Usually that is covered up, often to save the family grief, or theevidence for suicide is uncertain or missing and the manner of death is officially listed asan accident.

In the coroner’s tabulation the manner of death of a number of veterans was listed as“accidental” when the cause of death was actually found to be a drug overdose or similarsubstance abuse. In those cases I have taken the liberty of listing them under substanceabuse in (Table 4) instead.

Homicide

Those veterans known to have been murdered after being arrested are listed in(Table 2), Based on Uniform Crime Report statistics the murder rate in ColoradoSprings in 2012 was 4.2 per 100,000 residents. There are an estimated 80,000 veteransin El Paso County suggesting about 3.4 veterans per year are murdered here, or overthe four year sampling period (2011-2014) about 14 veterans would have beenmurdered. However, the coroner’s data only lists 7 (Table 2) for this period. But in 2014there were 3 veteran homicides, close to the predicted rate.

Veterans whose death was caused by homicide are the youngest set of victims in thepresent sample with ages ranging from 27 to 47 (Table A).

Again, the sample size is very small but current data do suggest a number of veterandeaths by homicide have been missed.

Natural

Veterans who died of natural causes are tabulated in (Table 3). One thing that standsout in this tabulation is that none of veterans who died a natural death had been chargedwith domestic violence. Also, on average they lived longer, with an age range at time ofdeath of 50 to 72 years (Table A).

It should be understood that many who die from natural causes are not examined bythe coroner. So this list is incomplete.

Substance abuse

When the pain and agony gets to be too much to bear veterans seek any escapepossible. Those known to have died from substance abuse are listed in (Table 4).

Heroin, methamphetamine, and cocaine were drugs of choice. Others crawled into abottle and eventually died from chronic alcoholism or alcohol poisoning.

I regard a death resulting from substance abuse as basically a suicide.

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Suicide

Suicide is often used as an escape from whatever demons possessed theseveterans. They are listed in (Table 5).

It is to be hoped that earlier and more effective interventions can be found forveterans like these rather than destroying their lives with charges of domestic violencethat are clearly a result of their hidden injuries and the current policy of “catch, convict,and release” practiced by the justice system.

Unknown

Veterans who died from presently unknown causes are listed in (Table 6).Improvements in record keeping by the county coroner will likely reduce the number ofunknown fatalities in the future.

Part III — Suggestions and Conclusions

Veterans are disappearing!

The questions are why, how, and where? It has proven quite difficult to track andtabulate veteran deaths even though there seems to be little question many of them aredying.

One of the first problems encountered is establishing a body is that of a veteran,something our coroner has no way of doing on a regular basis. Further, news reportsonly occasionally state whether fatalities have resulted in the death of a veteran. Andmany, if not most veterans return home after their discharge if they are able, a wise movegiven the treatment veterans receive in our judicial district. When they die there it is quiteunlikely notice will filter back here except by accident.

Many veterans just want to be left alone and disappear into the backwoods, or theybecome expatriates moving to Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, etc. Of course the deathsof those men go unrecorded except perhaps in some government tomes I have not yetfound a way to cross correlate with.

It is possible, however, to use this limited sample of veteran deaths to propose better means of keeping others alive.

Justice

The basic purpose of a justice system is to deliver justice for all by convicting andpunishing the guilty after a crime has been committed. The law and the threat ofpunishment are aimed at deterring criminal acts and thereby protecting the innocent.Criminal law once was, and should again be reactive.

Realistically, justice is only attainable if there are a limited number of easilyunderstood mala in se criminal laws. But sometime around the 1970’s legislaturesadopted get tough on crime attitudes and passed innumerable mala prohibita laws, ofwhich the 1971 War on Drugs is the type example. The situation was exacerbated in

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1994 by passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that micromanagesintimate relations much to the detriment of veterans, their families, and civilization.

The vast majority of crimes today are mala prohibita. Congress, states, cities, localmunicipalities and districts all have, and abuse the ability to enact statutes, regulations,and ordinances with the presumed intent to create a society that reflects the biases,bigotry, ideology and religion of each individual body.

The result was police agencies that ballooned in size and number. The once effectivepeace officer/public safety model was abandoned. Police became law enforcementagents of the government and the policing model became arrest and incarcerate.

Logic, reason, and, of course, the ability to enforce all of these laws equally andequitably has gone by the board. And the immense corpus of all these laws andregulations make them unknowable even to judges, lawyers, and academics. And pitythe poor policeman trying to enforce them against a citizenry that hasn’t the faintest ideathese statutes even exist.

Ignorance of the law is the norm today.

The situation was made infinitely worse by the passage of mandatory arrest andsentencing laws that caused prison populations to explode (Figure 1). Today the UnitedStates has the largest prison population of any country in the history of the world.

Figure 1. Wikipedia graph of the number of prisoners in the United States asa function of time following the explosion of mala prohibita laws inthe 1970’s.

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Jails as psychiatric hospitals

Unfortunately, the explosion of mala prohibita laws in the 1970s followed, or perhapswas caused to a large extent by shuttering most of the psychiatric hospitals in the UnitedStates.

Beginning around 1950 a number of antipsychotic drugs were developed that allowedmany mentally-ill patients formerly under care in long-term mental health hospitals to betreated on an outpatient basis. By 1970 there was a widespread movement todeinstutionalize most mental health patients initiated by three factors:

• A socio-political movement for community mental health services and open hospitals;

• The availability of psychotropic drugs able to manage many psychotic episodes;

• Financial imperatives to shift costs from state to federal budgets.

With Social Security Insurance (SSI) and Social Security Disability (SSDI) payments itwas possible to release many patients from mental health hospitals and move them intoprivate or group homes and allow them to nominally live independently with the use ofthese drugs.

The patient population of mental health hospitals in 1955 was estimated at 560,000and according to the Treatment Advocacy Center there was one psychiatric bed forevery 300 Americans. By 1977 it is estimated the mental health patient population inhospitals had fallen to 160,000 and many of the facilities caring for the mentally ill wereclosed, often due to government budget cuts.

It is now extremely difficult to find a bed for a seriously mentally-ill person who needsto be hospitalized. By 2005 there was just one psychiatric bed for every 3,000Americans. Even worse, the majority of the existing beds are filled with court-ordered(forensic) cases and thus not really available.

While deinstutionalization worked for many of the mentally ill, many others ended uphomeless and indigent. The erratic behavior of these men and women naturally broughtthem to the attention of law enforcement officers and, lacking mental health facilities,they were incarcerated in jails around the country. As more humane and cost-effectivemethods of treating mental illness have disappeared, jails have become, in effect,psychiatric hospitals.

Nicholas Kristof, in a February 8, 2014, article reviewed the overall situation, notingthat:

“More than half of prisoners in the United States have a mental health problem,according to a 2006 Justice Department study. Among female inmates, almostthree-quarters have a mental disorder.”

Kristof goes on to note that we have again criminalized mental illness and that thesystem is abhorrent and senseless, as well as an astronomically expensive way to treatmental illness. He notes that more than three times as many mentally ill people arehoused in prisons and jails as in hospitals.

However, a sheriff has no choice but to accept and incarcerate men and womensuffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and other psychotic disorders

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delivered by local police forces. Worse, if possible, incarceration often results in a loss ofessential drugs for the prisoners.

An average of 150 veterans are incarcerated in our CJC on a given day. While somepercentage of these veterans are there for knowingly, purposefully, or recklessly (mensrea) committing mala in se criminal acts, it is quite evident the great majority of theseveterans are incarcerated for minor mala prohibita crimes that are plainly the result ofmental illnesses and injuries resulting from their military service.

Clearly the endless imperial wars of the 21st Century and the millions of woundedresulting from these fruitless and ill-advised conflicts has resulted in a disastrous trap forveterans attempting to reintegrate into a society they scarcely recognize and are oftenill-fitted for.

It belabors the obvious to state the Veterans Administration is of little or no help to many of these veterans.

Time in justice system

Almost from the beginning of this study in 2010 it was obvious that once a veteran gotcaught up in our “justice” system that it was virtually impossible for them to get out alive.Of those who have since died, and are tabulated here, some 45 (54%) of the 83 werefirst booked into our county jail before July 2010. Fifteen (18%) of them were first bookedinto the CJC in the 1980’s, or some 30 years ago, and were still being jailed periodicallyduring the study period before their death.

The evidence is plain that once a veteran is arrested, booked, and convicted (pleabargain), or what I term “catch, convict, and release,” that there is very little chance theywill be able to integrate back into society as a productive citizen, and a very highprobability that they will be repeatedly rearrested. One veteran, who is currently in thelocal Veteran Trauma Court, is known to have been booked and jailed nineteen (19)times in the five years of this study. Many others have been booked 10, 12, 14 times. Inone case the veteran had been arrested for drunk driving six (6) times in less than twoyears. It may be safely assumed he drove drunk many more times than he was caughtand that, sooner or later, he and/or someone else will die.

If public safety is of any importance at all some of these veterans need to be removedfrom society, either to state prison or, more desirably, to long-term mental health care forthe good of both society and themselves.

Domestic violence over and over again.

It seems self evident that one of the best chances a veteran has of reintegrating intocivilian society is if they have a stable, supportive family and community. But theideological goal of feminism is to destroy families and laws like VAWA support thatgoal. And it is sickening to find an 87-year-old World War II and Korean War veteran withno known priors arrested on a dogmatic charge of domestic violence, i.e., no actualviolence was alleged, just two months prior to his death. The man needed help, notincarceration and criminal charges. But medical and aging problems don’t exist in theblack-and-white illusions of what feminists call “domestic violence.”

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Episodes of PTSD, TBI, and other mental disorders are scary and the wife, girlfriend,or other family members or neighbors need help. And when help is needed it is natural toturn to the police by dialing 911. But police today are law enforcement officers, not peaceofficers. So the already traumatized veteran is arrested, jailed, and criminal charges filedagainst him just as though destroying his family, marriage, and children would correct hismental and physical injuries and deter future episodes.

So the veteran is in jail for domestic violence. Now what?

He is put through an ideological rain dance of a coerced plea bargain, a treatmentprogram that has little or no relation to his injuries, and given a restraining orderdesigned to make his problems worse.

Despite the court order, commonly the veteran simply moves back home after a DVarrest as the woman called for help, not an arrest. Alternatively, she can be using DV orsexual abuse charges to gain an advantage in a divorce or child custody dispute.

In either case the penalties leave the veteran little more than a dead man walking.More arrests and he loses his kids. And, as in this preliminary study, the demise of manyveterans follows (see summary in Table A).

Fix the problem, not the blame

At this point is it really necessary to establish that arrest, incarceration, and a criminalconviction are contraindicated for hidden wounds like traumatic brain injuries (TBI) andpost traumatic stress?

The first problem in dealing with veterans is to sort out the criminals from the bonafide wounded warriors. Corry and Stockburger (2013, p. 85-87) have put forward amethod of triage that applies after arrest and booking.

Ideally, however, preliminary evaluations by first responders would send the veterandirectly to a treatment facility.

Community Response Teams

One method that offers promise is being developed by the Colorado Springs Fire andPolice Department. What they are developing are Community Response Teams (CRT,or Mobile Mental Health Units). These teams were created in December 2014 to try andfix a previously inefficient system and to help mental health patients where emergencyservices (911) have been requested.

The teams are composed of a nurse with the fire department, a police officer, and aclinical social worker experienced in dealing with mentally-disturbed individuals.Examples of the CRT work cited include checking on a combat veteran suspected ofbeing suicidal and talking him off of an apartment complex roof.

In practice I am told the police would respond to the 911 call to stabilize the situation.When officers recognize the problem involves mental health problems, e.g., a veteranundergoing a PTSD episode, the CRT would be called to deal with the issues.Unfortunately, at present the officer usually calls for a SWAT team, which often makesthe problems worse.

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Unless there is danger to the team the police could leave and the team would addressthe mental and medical health needs on scene and then, if needed, transport theindividual to a treatment facility, e.g., detox for drug and alcohol problems or a mentalhealth facility.

In many, hopefully most such cases no charges would be filed and the veteran wouldnot be jailed, although they would be detained in the detox or mental health facility untilstabilized.

The El Paso County Sheriff, the Colorado Springs Chief of Police, and the Community& Public Health Administrator for the city Fire Department have all expressed interest inexpanding this program to cover the entire county, a project I heartily endorse.

Pretrial diversion

There are many situations in which the law or the situation leave the frontline officerno options but to make an arrest. However, upon review not all elements of mens reaand actus reus may not be present in order to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt asrequired for a criminal conviction. In good conscience the district attorney should thendismiss or nolle prosequi the case. Or the case may go to trial but the veteran isacquitted.

However, with many veterans it is clear from the circumstances of their arrest(s) andtheir military and medical history that they need help. Currently they are simply pushedback out on to the street to fend for themselves as best they can when their case isdismissed.

Further, in many cases where evidence suggests a veteran may be guilty of thecrimes alleged it is not in the interest of justice to simply prosecute and incarcerate themor, more commonly, sentence them to probation and push them back out on to the street.The “catch, convict, and release” scenario so commonly observed that often leaves aveteran with few options but more crime.

In 2013 the Colorado legislature devised a system of pretrial diversion, C.R.S.§ 18-1.3-101, in an attempt to:

“...facilitate and encourage diversion of defendants from the criminal justicesystem when diversion may prevent defendants from committing additional criminalacts, restore victims of crime, facilitate the defendant's ability to pay restitution tovictims of crime, and reduce the number of cases in the criminal justice system.Diversion should ensure defendant accountability while allowing defendants to avoidthe collateral consequences associated with criminal charges and convictions.”

In discussing the possible implementation of this statute in veteran cases with ourdistrict attorney it is clear that some tuning of the law is needed. But it is evident that afteran arrest this statute would give him and the court the authority to supervise a woundedwarrior and use probation for oversight while the veteran is treated. Presuming theveteran (1) successfully complies with the treatment program, (2) makes any applicablerestitution, and (3) is judged to not present a further threat to society as a result; criminalcharges against him would be dismissed.

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The stigma of a criminal conviction would thus be avoided while the veteran’scondition could be addressed.

Given the plain evidence of the criminogenic nature of the present system of “catch,convict, and release” such an approach would be a distinct improvement.

Veteran peer mentors

The present Veteran Trauma Court has used veteran peer mentors to help veteransin the justice system deal with their problems on a vet-to-vet level from the beginning.Unfortunately far more peer mentors are needed. This program is also underfunded andmost peer mentors work on a strictly volunteer basis.

With its tens-of-thousands of veterans El Paso County might easily expand thisprogram at modest cost. If at least reimbursed for expenses peer mentors could addressmany of the problems wounded warriors have. Wives, girlfriends, family, or friends couldcall on the peer mentor for minor crises and before the veteran starts acting out and afull-blown episode explodes.

Veteran peer mentors can also perform welfare checks without the response ofirrational anger police often encounter. The memory problems suffered by so manyveterans can also be helped by simply a phone call from a peer mentor. A multitude ofother issues might be addressed by expanded use of veteran peer mentors, who areoften in a better position to understand what the wounded warrior is going through thanany civilian professional.

Like any battle buddy, when the situation deteriorates the peer mentor can act as amediator and advocate to get the veteran the treatment they need rather than thepresent practice of arresting and incarcerating them.

Veteran peer mentors are a lot less expensive than hiring more and more police andbuilding more and larger jails.

Technology

From my observations it seems that modern technology is grossly underused by thejustice system. At least in part this is institutional bias where passing a law is presumedto fix the problem, and if the citizens don’t obey then they are arrested and jailed.

With mala in se criminal laws and police working as peace officers to maintain publicsafety, that model was reasonably effective. But it fails miserably today as governmentincreasingly micromanages our personal lives.

In advocating for the use of additional technology by the justice system one treads anincreasingly narrow line between the compelling interests of society and the illegalabridgment of civil liberties. However, much good could be derived, and public safetyenhanced by technological approaches beyond NSA collecting our email messages andmonitoring our phone calls.

For example, legislatures keep increasing the penalties for driving under the influenceof alcohol, an acknowledged issue of public safety. But veterans keep driving drunk,keep getting arrested for it over and over, and too often killing or injuring others. The

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“law” is little deterrent in many such cases but there are effective technical methods tostop drunk driving.

There are now many ignition interlock systems available that make it virtuallyimpossible to start or drive a vehicle if alcohol or various drugs are detected. Onaverage, interlocks cost about $70-150 to install and about $60-80 per month formonitoring and calibration. $60-$80 is about the cost to the government of a day in jailand more than the cost to the veteran of lost time at work, or the loss of their job. Yetveteran arrest records show them being arrested numerous times for DUI but apparentlyno ignition interlock requirement. If cost is an issue for the veteran then it would definitelybe cheaper for society to pay for the interlock rather than the jail and court costs ofrepeatedly arresting and trying him. It would also enable the veteran to continue theirauto insurance. That would certainly enhance public safety far beyond the current “catch,convict, release” policy.

SCRAM variants of ankle monitors can also measure alcohol use and may be ofadditional use in cases where alcohol is a contributor to an offender’s criminal activitiesbeyond simply driving drunk, e.g., intimate partner violence cases where the partnerscontinue to live together.

Unquestionably there are many other ways technology can be used to deter or limitcriminal activity. Reports such as this one are but one way the data can be used tounderstand patterns and make predictions. But most effective of all would be to reducethe number of criminal statutes by about two orders of magnitude so that they might beknown and understood by all, and obeyed by most.

In comparison the secret lists, e.g., no fly lists, now kept by multiple governmentagencies do very little for public safety, particularly given their enormous costs and grossinfringements on civil liberties.

However, it is quite clear that veteran’s problems cannot, and will not be solvedby more legislation and arrests.

Citizen defenses

Law enforcement is, at best, a secondary line of defense for a citizen. As the sayinggoes, a gun in hand is better than a cop on the phone. So the best road to public safetyis not more laws, more police, more courts, more jails, more..., but an informed andarmed citizenry capable of defending itself against most offenses.

For example, rather than depend on police catching a drunk driver, or picking up thepieces after a wreck, the use of portable breathalysers by individuals should beencouraged so that veterans as well as citizens might test themselves before driving.

Home protection systems have made incredible advances of late, particularly whencombined with smart phones. And in cases where women attack men a video or audiorecording is quite useful.

It is also fairly easy to block harassing phone calls today. If one is using a smartphone there are numerous apps that identify or block callers. Harassing or threateningcalls probably require more extensive steps. Note that if you use Call Trace, *57, thatyou will be charged a fee for each trace and the results of the trace are only available to

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the police and phone company. My personal experience with that feature is that it is awaste of time and money but should not be ignored in criminal cases.

Pamphlets explaining what to expect with wounded and combat veterans would bevery helpful. The EJF provides a Handbook For A New Military Spouse originallypublished by the 101st Airborne that is downloaded from our site over 4,000 times amonth. It beggars the imagination how many times a handbook for dealing with awounded military veteran might be used? But one is badly needed and I’d be very happyto help distribute it.

There are many more things citizens might and should do in their own defense butthat topic goes far beyond the scope of this essay’s attempts to keep veterans alive andout of jail.

Closing remarks

It is clear that the present system of “catch, convict, and release” in most cases onlymakes a veterans life worse and often leads to homelessness and an early death. It isalso apparent the situation will not be improved or corrected by more laws and arrests.

There can be little question that in many, if not most cases law enforcement andarrests of veterans are criminogenic and public safety endangered by current practices.The path forward appears to demand that police return to acting as peace officers andserving the needs of public safety. That will obviously require reform of criminal statutes.Without reform it will continue to be a crime to be a veteran.

In the interim individual officers and agencies can take steps to recognize individuals,e.g., veterans, and behaviors characteristic of mental health problems to seek treatmentrather than the simplistic approach of an arrest. Toward that end the CommunityResponse Teams currently being developed in El Paso County would be a giant stepup.

It is also to be hoped that the endless futile imperial wars of the 21st Century will end and the constant flow of wounded warriors from these conflicts cease.

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