A group of eight U.S. soldiers stationed in southern Afghanistan have been charged in connection with the death of a soldier from their own company, the NATO military command in Afghanistan announced early Wednesday. That death was initially considered a suicide.
Pvt. Danny Chen, a 19-year old infantryman from Chinatown in New York City, was found dead in a guard tower of Combat Outpost Palace from an “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” the International Security Force Afghanistan (ISAF) disclosed. When the Defense Department officially announced Chen’s death, on October 4, it did not list the circumstances that cost Chen his life.
But now eight of his fellow soldiers from C Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based out of Alaska’s Fort Wainwright, face charges in connection with Chen’s death. Five of those charged are sergeants in the company. One of them is a lieutenant.
The lieutenant, Daniel J. Schwartz, is charged with dereliction of duty. Five others are charged with negligent homicide, in addition to other charges, such as assault consummated by battery (Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel), communicating a threat (Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb), and involuntary manslaughter (Van Bockel, Holcolmb, Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, Spc. Thomas P. Curtis, and Spc. Ryan J. Offutt). None are charged with murder.
The charges were issued against the soldiers on Wednesday. ISAF declined provide further information, “to protect the integrity of any judicial proceedings that may follow,” Spc. Alan Davis, a spokesman, told Danger Room.
Chen’s family does not accept the military’s initial explanation that Chen committed suicide. They claim that the Army told them Chen was “beaten” by his superior officers, and made the video above to publicize Chen’s case. His family and friends, supported by the local chapter of the Organization for Chinese Americans, held a candlelight vigil in lower Manhattan on December 15 demanding an official investigation. Local TV news reported that 400 people attended.
At the rally, speakers suggested Chen was hazed because of his race. One read from a February message they said Chen wrote: “They ask if I’m from China a few times a day… They also call out my name Chen in a goat-like voice sometimes for no reason. … People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time. I’m running out of jokes to come back at them.”
Chen’s congresswoman, Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.), wrote a letter to the Army in November demanding “answers now” about Chen’s death.
The charges in Chen’s death come on the heels of a guilty verdict for the ringleader of the “Kill Team,” a group of rogue soldiers in southern Afghanistan. Those soldiers were charged with murdering Afghans for sport, and assaulting soldiers in their unit who threatened to blow the whistle.
But Chen’s friends and family have drawn a different analogy, comparing Chen to Pat Tillman, the ex-NFL player killed by friendly fire, whose death the Army covered up.
“It is important that a strong signal be sent that this type of banned misconduct has no place in the Army, where people like Pvt Danny Chen are serving our country,” Elizabeth OuYang, president of the New York chapter of the Organization for Chinese Americans, told Danger Room. “To die not from enemy fire but from mistreatment by superiors at his own base is totally unacceptable, uncondonable and must be punished.”
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