{"id":28822,"date":"2012-02-21T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T14:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=28822"},"modified":"2012-02-21T10:38:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T14:38:48","slug":"another-veterans-plea-for-help-lands-him-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=28822","title":{"rendered":"Another veterans’ plea for help lands him in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Duvall, a 45-year-old homeless Navy Persian Gulf War veteran made a call to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs hotline when he was contemplating killing himself with a gun he’d made. The counselor sent the police to pick him up and they got him to a VA treatment facility and now that it seems that he’s on the way to recovery, the federal prosecutor is filing charges against him (Washington Post<\/a> link);<\/p>\n

Duvall, who served in the Navy and lives outside Roanoke, now faces four federal counts related to manufacturing and possessing the homemade gun, which could lead to a 40-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Veterans groups and mental health advocates warn that Duvall\u2019s prosecution could have a chilling effect on distressed veterans who might be contemplating suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery veteran I\u2019ve talked to is outraged,\u201d said Dan Karnes, president of the Roanoke Valley Veterans Council. \u201cWhen we have veterans that are coming back from wars now, they\u2019ll think twice about seeking help when they see what was done to him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, oh, yeah, the persecutor pursuing charges, well he just happens to be DVA administrator Eric Shinseki’s son-in-law, Timothy Heaphy;<\/p>\n

Through a spokesman, Heaphy declined to comment. But his office has argued that it has an obligation to prosecute Duvall, who admitted to making and possessing the weapon and was on the Virginia Tech campus, the site of a mass shooting in 2007, at the time of his call. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s such a coward that he had to “decline comment” through a spokesperson? Yeah, this will go a long way towards veterans seeking help. Do we have to talk to our lawyers before we call the hotline?<\/p>\n

It brings to mind the case of Matthew Corrigan<\/a> that we discussed several days ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Duvall, a 45-year-old homeless Navy Persian Gulf War veteran made a call to the Department … Another veterans’ plea for help lands him in court<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}