{"id":75929,"date":"2017-11-13T15:56:36","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T20:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=75929"},"modified":"2017-11-13T15:56:36","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T20:56:36","slug":"air-force-could-face-lawsuits-over-sutherland-springs-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=75929","title":{"rendered":"Air Force could face lawsuits over Sutherland Springs shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that Air Force authorities are preparing for an avalanche of law suits that may be coming their way because of their gross negligence in regards to entering the criminal conviction of Devin Kelley into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) enabling his lawful purchase of a scary black gun which he used to kill more than a score of churchgoers in Sutherland Springs, Texas, injuring scores more.<\/p>\n

Well, actually, it’s the US taxpayer who will be on the hook for any lawsuits, it’s too bad folks in the Air Force who are responsible for the oversight will get off scot-free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s almost inevitable that the Air Force will be sued,\u201d said retired Lt. Gen. Richard Harding, former judge advocate general of the service. \u201cAnd I think there\u2019s a case that can be made, you bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

If lawsuits against the Air Force were successful, said Don Christensen, the service\u2019s former top prosecutor, the damages could be huge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is being shot while you\u2019re in church, watching your baby be killed \u2014 what\u2019s it worth?\u201d Christensen said. \u201cI don\u2019t see how it\u2019s not the biggest financial payout in the history of the Air Force.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. laws rarely provide for victims of gun violence to seek compensation in civil lawsuits, and the doctrine of sovereign immunity prevents many lawsuits against the government. But this case is exceptional, experts said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stars & Stripes continues to make the case for the plaintiffs;<\/p>\n

[R]eporting the case to the FBI database was not discretionary. \u201cIt was required by law,\u201d Christensen said.<\/p>\n

Plaintiffs in FTCA cases must also show that the harm caused by the negligence was foreseeable.<\/p>\n

\u201dI think it\u2019s clearly foreseeable Kelley would commit an act of violence. The threats he\u2019s made against his wife and his commanders \u2014 they knew that,\u201d Christensen said.<\/p>\n

OSI also was aware of allegations that Kelley had pointed a gun at his wife and had access to weapons, even though that charge had been dropped as part of a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

Harding said that Air Force officials for at least a decade had been talking seriously about the importance of entering domestic violence convictions into the FBI database and that it wasn\u2019t clear why that hadn\u2019t been done.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can answer that – the Air Force doesn’t care. They act like they care, but they really don’t. They’ll go through the motions and they’ll make up training to look like they care, but actually, it’s just one more thing to pencil whip quarterly. Now they’ve been caught, so it’s time to act like they care again.<\/p>\n

It’s not just the Air Force, according to the article, only one case of domestic abuse has been reported from the Department of Defense to the FBI, compared to the 11,000 dishonorable discharges that were reported.<\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure that the Air Force will settle with any plaintiffs, because discovery will be brutal, more brutal than a trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes reports that Air Force authorities are preparing for an avalanche of law suits … Air Force could face lawsuits over Sutherland Springs shootings<\/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":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75929","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=75929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}