{"id":76895,"date":"2018-01-03T11:58:25","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T16:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=76895"},"modified":"2018-01-03T13:15:46","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T18:15:46","slug":"law-student-turned-murderer-escaped-from-hospital-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=76895","title":{"rendered":"Law student turned murderer escaped from hospital in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Denver Post<\/a> reports that Matthew Riehl, former University of Wyoming law student, who murdered a Colorado sheriff’s deputy on Sunday, suffered a “psychotic episode” in 2014 and was placed on a 72 hour mental health hold in an unnamed VA hospital after he absconded from his hospital room during treatment.<\/p>\n

After that episode, Riehl had an \u201curgent contact for Mental Health\u201d on July 22, 2015, and another \u201cmental health assessment\u201d on Aug. 26, 2015.<\/p>\n

He skipped a Nov. 3, 2015, appointment and was called in August 2016 to \u201creschedule an internal medicine clinic\u201d \u2014 but he declined, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Riehl graduated with a law degree from the University of Wyoming in 2010 and joined a law firm. He opened his own practice four years later, but by October 2016, he had withdrawn his membership in the Wyoming State Bar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The further you get from the scene of his crime, the more you hear about his time in the military. CNN even found it necessary to recount the Columbine massacre to it’s readers because of the proximity of the two shootings. The Post, however, reports that Riehl probably didn’t catch the PTSD as a result of his military service, in spite of his mother’s claims;<\/p>\n

Riehl\u2019s mother told authorities that her son had post-traumatic stress disorder from his Iraq war deployment and was refusing to take his medication to treat the condition.<\/p>\n

Riehl enlisted in the Army Reserves in 2003, and in 2006 he joined the Wyoming Army National Guard. He deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom from April 2009 to March 2010. He was honorably discharged in 2012.<\/p>\n

His last rank was specialist, and he was classified as a medic.<\/p>\n

Deidre Forster, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming Army National Guard, said she wasn\u2019t aware of any discipline leveled against him or any issues surrounding his service. She also said she didn\u2019t know whether he saw any combat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not aware that he did,\u201d Forster said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe he did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forster said he served during Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 2nd Battalion of the 300th Field Artillery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have the name of the base where he was stationed, but I believe it was in Kuwait,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bigger question is “Was Riehl flagged by the NICS background check system when he bought the firearms he used to shoot five sheriff’s deputies?” He certainly should have been flagged because of his mental health issues, which, by the way, don’t seem to be related to his military service. Not much combat going on in Kuwait for National Guard artillery units, or their medics.<\/p>\n

Maybe he caught the PTSD from the Hunter Safety course his battalion commander, known as Powder 6, gave them while they were in Kuwait;<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

We’ve seen an awful lot of stories of people who should have been prevented from buying firearms because of their past and this seems to be just another one. We’re going to see more if they don’t get the NICS system under competent control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Denver Post reports that Matthew Riehl, former University of Wyoming law student, who murdered a … Law student turned murderer escaped from hospital in 2014<\/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":[238],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-incompetence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76895","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=76895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}