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I reached out to the Army with several questions about this story from @Kyle_Rempfer; they provided this from Michael Brady, the principal deputy for Army public affairs, (which Kyle has in his story) while they worked the other questions.
Take a look at the last paragraph.
Take a look at the last paragraph.
Nowhere in this statement does the Army acknowledge that they dropped the ball in this case. Instead they point to a report that says commanders almost always make the right choice when it comes to rape cases.
I wrote about that report here: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pentagon-sexual-assault-evidence-report/
I wrote about that report here: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pentagon-sexual-assault-evidence-report/
Setting aside for a moment that including that in this statement in response to such a horrifying story is insensitive, to say the least, the report the Army mentions had more to say than just that most of commanders' decisions are "reasonable."
As Don Christensen of @ProtectRDfnders mentioned at the time, the report also says that of the 1,904 rape cases reviewed by the Defense Advisory Committee, less than 5% resulted in a conviction.
“The DoD leadership will look at one thing and one thing only: ‘Oh well our commanders make decisions that are reasonable,” Christensen told me. “Okay, well you fail about 94% of the time."
But as we know the military is in an increasingly tough spot as the pressure to take decisions on cases like these away from commanders is growing. This from @missy_ryan has good context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/sexual-assault-military-reform-pentagon-resistance/2021/04/10/e5a98a92-96f7-11eb-8e42-3906c09073f9_story.html
The fact of the matter is while the Army — and the military — is fighting that change, stories like the one reported today go directly against their argument. And the seeming inability to recognize failure and address it by holding people accountable hurts the argument even more.
Read @Kyle_Rempfer's story if you haven't already: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/04/12/army-didnt-prosecute-nco-accused-of-rape-so-he-did-it-again-and-again/
