Here is an interesting read from the LA Times about a soldier stationed at Yongsan Garrison that was being charged with the manslaughter of his best friend:
Raymond Royal, Chrissy Royal, Kathleen Stanfield and Karen Anderson sit in the Royals’ Seoul apartment after Raymond Royal’s two-day preliminary hearing.
The men were U.S. Army mechanics, and they had arranged to be deployed at the same time in South Korea. Pfc. Royal, 22, was based at the Yongsan Garrison, a major U.S. military base near Itaewon. Pfc. Anderson, 20, was stationed at Humphreys, a rural garrison 55 miles south, and he was visiting for the weekend.
They drank; they played pool; they wrestled like muscle-bound, army-trained puppies, grappling into chokeholds until one or the other cried uncle. They got matching tattoos — “friends forever” swirling down their forearms in blue Korean script.
Chrissy — an energetic young woman from Royal’s North Carolina hometown — went home early, and just after midnight, Royal and Anderson decided to go home too. A taxi dropped them off near Royal’s apartment. Royal and Anderson began roughhousing. Royal pushed Anderson with two hands — a shove to the chest — and Anderson fell backwards.
Thus began the first in a tragic series of unpredictable events that would leave one friend dead, the other on trial, and the military justice system forced to grapple with complex questions about responsibility and punishment in a case whose primary villain seemed to be fate.
It happened in a matter of seconds. Just as Anderson tumbled into the street, a car veered around a corner and blazed through a red blinking light, plowing suddenly over Anderson with both axles — bump, bump. The car stopped. The police arrived. And 12 days later, Anderson died in the hospital, hooked up to a mechanical ventilator.
The Army charged Royal with manslaughter.
The hearing that would determine whether Royal would have to face a full court-martial began on a crisp day in October. [LA Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but it seems to me that the person most culpable for the accident is the driver that ran the red light in the first place.
After reading the whole article I believe that the Army made the right decision in this case. There were multiple entities responsible for the death of Anderson (Royal, the Korean driver, and the hospital) and the most the Royal was guilty of in my opinion was conduct unbecoming of a U.S. Army soldier.
guitard
8 years ago
There are so many layers to this story. I read the original at the LA Times website and realized that Anderson was black and Royal is white. I can’t help but wonder if that colored the perception of the Korean in the bar who testified that he saw them fighting – but later admitted that he was too far from them to actually hear them or really see them that well.
@Guitard, that is an interesting fact that Anderson was black. I think you may be on to something in regards to how that might have contributed to the perception of them fighting by the Korean.
After reading the whole article I believe that the Army made the right decision in this case. There were multiple entities responsible for the death of Anderson (Royal, the Korean driver, and the hospital) and the most the Royal was guilty of in my opinion was conduct unbecoming of a U.S. Army soldier.
There are so many layers to this story. I read the original at the LA Times website and realized that Anderson was black and Royal is white. I can’t help but wonder if that colored the perception of the Korean in the bar who testified that he saw them fighting – but later admitted that he was too far from them to actually hear them or really see them that well.
@Guitard, that is an interesting fact that Anderson was black. I think you may be on to something in regards to how that might have contributed to the perception of them fighting by the Korean.