thedrifter
10-10-06, 02:23 PM
October 16, 2006
Instructor acquitted in swim-class drowning
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
SAN DIEGO — A military judge has acquitted a water survival instructor of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the 2005 drowning of a drill instructor during swim training.
In finding Staff Sgt. David J. Roughan not guilty of the two charges, the judge agreed with the defense that Staff Sgt. Andrew Jason Gonzales died in an accidental drowning Aug. 1, 2005.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks issued his decision Oct. 5 after nearly three days of testimony during a general court-martial at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Roughan stood at attention at the defense table, flanked by his attorneys as his pregnant wife and friends waited in the courtroom. Meeks did not elaborate on his reasoning. A day earlier, he acquitted Roughan of dereliction of duty.
Defense attorneys were content.
“His death was purely accidental,” said Neal Puckett, the lead defense attorney and a retired lieutenant colonel.
Gonzales, 30, drowned during a one-on-one training session in the depot’s training pool. The newly hatted drill instructor was in the sixth day of a conditioning program designed to prepare students for the follow-on official Marine Combat Instructor for Water Survival course in Coronado, Calif.
His widow, Michelle Gonzales, had hoped for a guilty verdict as she watched the proceedings alongside her husband’s grandmother, Betty Alexander, who traveled from Texas for the trial. But Michelle Gonzales said prosecutors fell short in proving the case and felt the judge made his mind up well before the case ended.
“They didn’t do their job in fact-finding,” she said. “They’ve had more than enough time to get their act together … and get organized.”
Her husband had complained about two training “games” of water polo and underwater hockey. Five days before he died, she said, he told her, “I almost drowned today” after a grueling session of water polo games. In the aquatic game, instructors jump on or grab students in simulated rescue drills in deep water, a tactic designed to help students practice their escapes from panicky drowning victims.
Several fellow students and instructors testified that Andrew Gonzales was noticeably uncomfortable with how rescue-escape drills were done. On the morning he died, he refused to get in the pool and was sent to talk with his Bravo Company first sergeant.
First Sgt. Shaun Slattery testified that the first sergeant at the pool reassured him about his concerns regarding the “silly games” and said Gonzales wouldn’t be dropped if he didn’t play. “I felt confident that he was being taken care of by the staff,” Slattery testified.
So Slattery sent Gonzales back. Gonzales eventually entered the pool to swim laps, according to one witness. But Roughan took him into the pool’s deep end and began to practice rescue-escape drills while students, swim instructors and the pool corpsman played underwater hockey.
Several students testified they saw Gonzales flailing in the water and yelling, “Let me go.”
“It just didn’t appear like he had any strength to get out of the rescue hold,” said Staff Sgt. Eric Howard, a drill instructor. “He was just begging, [making] verbal gestures. I couldn’t understand anything. I guess the water was muffling his voice. It sounded like he was panicking.”
Former Staff Sgt. Robert Mayfield, who sat out the hockey game, testified that he saw Roughan hold and dunk Gonzales in the pool’s deep end. Gonzales gasped for air several times and at one point “seemed unconscious,” Mayfield said.
Instructors said it wasn’t uncommon for students to be scared, exhausted or panicked and yell to get out of the pool. “It happens quite a bit,” said Staff Sgt. Joe Kluczewski, the special projects team leader who ran the program.
Kluczewski testified that he saw nothing unusual with Roughan’s handling of Gonzales, despite his initial statement to investigators that it was “excessive.” When questioned by prosecutors, he complained that he gave the statement after a 10-hour interrogation session but offered no explanation.
Instructors said the “workup” course is designed to be tough to prepare students to complete the Coronado course, one of the Corps’ toughest physical programs, so they can return and do a stint at the pool teaching recruits how to swim and survive in the water.
Gonzales’ death came as the workup program shrank from a four-week course to two weeks, a move that concerned the pool staff. Some of the DIs sent to them for the program aren’t the best swimmers and often struggle with the training, they noted.
“There wasn’t enough time to get the new drill instructors to pass the course,” testified Staff Sgt. Duane Dishon, who was replaced by Roughan as the staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the swim tank and who was acquitted last month of dereliction of duty.
On Oct. 4, Meeks agreed to dismiss the dereliction of duty charge against Roughan after defense attorneys argued that the government failed to prove that charge. The official charge, as drafted and approved, did not specifically state a failure to properly or safely monitor and supervise the water training in the pool.
Another water-survival instructor, Staff Sgt. Fernando Galvan, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and dereliction of duty and is scheduled to be tried at a general court-martial Oct. 16. Galvan was in the pool at the time of the drowning and spent several minutes doing one-on-one training on rescue escapes with Gonzales while Roughan was nearby. It was unclear whether Roughan’s acquittal would have any effect on his case.
The instructional training company commander, Capt. Vincent Guida, received nonjudicial punishment for dereliction of duty.
Ellie
Instructor acquitted in swim-class drowning
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
SAN DIEGO — A military judge has acquitted a water survival instructor of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the 2005 drowning of a drill instructor during swim training.
In finding Staff Sgt. David J. Roughan not guilty of the two charges, the judge agreed with the defense that Staff Sgt. Andrew Jason Gonzales died in an accidental drowning Aug. 1, 2005.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Meeks issued his decision Oct. 5 after nearly three days of testimony during a general court-martial at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Roughan stood at attention at the defense table, flanked by his attorneys as his pregnant wife and friends waited in the courtroom. Meeks did not elaborate on his reasoning. A day earlier, he acquitted Roughan of dereliction of duty.
Defense attorneys were content.
“His death was purely accidental,” said Neal Puckett, the lead defense attorney and a retired lieutenant colonel.
Gonzales, 30, drowned during a one-on-one training session in the depot’s training pool. The newly hatted drill instructor was in the sixth day of a conditioning program designed to prepare students for the follow-on official Marine Combat Instructor for Water Survival course in Coronado, Calif.
His widow, Michelle Gonzales, had hoped for a guilty verdict as she watched the proceedings alongside her husband’s grandmother, Betty Alexander, who traveled from Texas for the trial. But Michelle Gonzales said prosecutors fell short in proving the case and felt the judge made his mind up well before the case ended.
“They didn’t do their job in fact-finding,” she said. “They’ve had more than enough time to get their act together … and get organized.”
Her husband had complained about two training “games” of water polo and underwater hockey. Five days before he died, she said, he told her, “I almost drowned today” after a grueling session of water polo games. In the aquatic game, instructors jump on or grab students in simulated rescue drills in deep water, a tactic designed to help students practice their escapes from panicky drowning victims.
Several fellow students and instructors testified that Andrew Gonzales was noticeably uncomfortable with how rescue-escape drills were done. On the morning he died, he refused to get in the pool and was sent to talk with his Bravo Company first sergeant.
First Sgt. Shaun Slattery testified that the first sergeant at the pool reassured him about his concerns regarding the “silly games” and said Gonzales wouldn’t be dropped if he didn’t play. “I felt confident that he was being taken care of by the staff,” Slattery testified.
So Slattery sent Gonzales back. Gonzales eventually entered the pool to swim laps, according to one witness. But Roughan took him into the pool’s deep end and began to practice rescue-escape drills while students, swim instructors and the pool corpsman played underwater hockey.
Several students testified they saw Gonzales flailing in the water and yelling, “Let me go.”
“It just didn’t appear like he had any strength to get out of the rescue hold,” said Staff Sgt. Eric Howard, a drill instructor. “He was just begging, [making] verbal gestures. I couldn’t understand anything. I guess the water was muffling his voice. It sounded like he was panicking.”
Former Staff Sgt. Robert Mayfield, who sat out the hockey game, testified that he saw Roughan hold and dunk Gonzales in the pool’s deep end. Gonzales gasped for air several times and at one point “seemed unconscious,” Mayfield said.
Instructors said it wasn’t uncommon for students to be scared, exhausted or panicked and yell to get out of the pool. “It happens quite a bit,” said Staff Sgt. Joe Kluczewski, the special projects team leader who ran the program.
Kluczewski testified that he saw nothing unusual with Roughan’s handling of Gonzales, despite his initial statement to investigators that it was “excessive.” When questioned by prosecutors, he complained that he gave the statement after a 10-hour interrogation session but offered no explanation.
Instructors said the “workup” course is designed to be tough to prepare students to complete the Coronado course, one of the Corps’ toughest physical programs, so they can return and do a stint at the pool teaching recruits how to swim and survive in the water.
Gonzales’ death came as the workup program shrank from a four-week course to two weeks, a move that concerned the pool staff. Some of the DIs sent to them for the program aren’t the best swimmers and often struggle with the training, they noted.
“There wasn’t enough time to get the new drill instructors to pass the course,” testified Staff Sgt. Duane Dishon, who was replaced by Roughan as the staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the swim tank and who was acquitted last month of dereliction of duty.
On Oct. 4, Meeks agreed to dismiss the dereliction of duty charge against Roughan after defense attorneys argued that the government failed to prove that charge. The official charge, as drafted and approved, did not specifically state a failure to properly or safely monitor and supervise the water training in the pool.
Another water-survival instructor, Staff Sgt. Fernando Galvan, is charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and dereliction of duty and is scheduled to be tried at a general court-martial Oct. 16. Galvan was in the pool at the time of the drowning and spent several minutes doing one-on-one training on rescue escapes with Gonzales while Roughan was nearby. It was unclear whether Roughan’s acquittal would have any effect on his case.
The instructional training company commander, Capt. Vincent Guida, received nonjudicial punishment for dereliction of duty.
Ellie