An just evaluate stumbled on that the convey native weather at the Fort Hood armed forces depraved in Texas created a “permissive environment for sexual assault and sexual harassment,” per a memoir released Tuesday.
Navy Secretary Ryan McCarthy acknowledged Tuesday that 14 leaders at Fort Hood were suspended or relieved from their positions.
The memoir comes after the disappearance and killing of Navy Spc. Vanessa Guillén earlier this year.
McCarthy appointed a 5-member civilian panel in July to behavior an just evaluate taking a peer into Fort Hood’s convey native weather and culture after Guillén’s disappearance. Guillén’s family acknowledged she had urged kinfolk and colleagues at Fort Hood that she had been sexually stressed at the depraved.
Whereas officials at the time acknowledged they had no credible knowledge or reports that Guillén used to be sexually assaulted, the allegations caused many carrier individuals to fraction their experiences with sexual assault and harassment on social media utilizing the hashtag #IAmVanessaGuillen.
The just evaluate panel additionally stumbled on that the Navy’s Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention Program (SHARP) had no longer performed its mandate to curb sexual assault and harassment as a result of structural screw ups to boot to a convey native weather that failed to instill the program’s core values under the brigade stage, as a result of this truth degrading self belief within the program, per the memoir.
Fort Hood has most seemingly the essential most sensible rates of slay, sexual assault and harassment within the Navy, per McCarthy. A memoir from the Protection Division in 2018 stumbled on that sexual assault within the armed forces had increased over the old two years.
Guillén, 20, used to be final viewed alive on April 22 at Fort Hood. Her dismembered stays had been stumbled on cease to the depraved two months later. When police moved in to arrest Spc. Aaron Robinson, 20, in reference to her disappearance and dying, he shot and killed himself, authorities acknowledged in early July. Rapidly later on, a woman identified as Robinson’s girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar, 22, used to be arrested on federal prices of tampering with proof, accused of having helped Robinson cast off Guillén’s physique. Aguilar, who pleaded no longer guilty, is due in court on Jan. 19.
As segment of the convey native weather, the failings of crime and Prison Investigation Division (CID) operations had been additionally examined by the just evaluate panel. CID took over Guillén’s case after she used to be reported missing.
The panel stumbled on that CID and the Directorate of Emergency Products and companies contributed “very diminutive diagnosis, feedback and overall situational awareness to the convey” in expose to meet their mandate to assist slice crime at the armed forces depraved.
“The deficient native weather additionally extended into the missing Soldier scenarios, where no one recognized the slippage in accountability procedures and unwillingness or incapacity of non- commissioned officers (NCOs) to avoid losing be conscious of their subordinates,” the memoir acknowledged.
Nicole Acevedo is a reporter for NBC News Digital. She reports, writes and produces reports for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.
