Indiana soldier jailed for serving in Iraq
An amazing story of government incompetence.
Last week, the U.S. Army soldier spent four days of his two-week leave from Iraq sitting in a cell at the Greene County Jail because he did not appear in court for his March 13 initial hearing on a misdemeanor charge of failure to stop after an accident resulting in damage to an unattended vehicle. He didn’t show up because he was at Speicher Camp in Tikrit, Iraq, 100 miles north of Baghdad on the Tigris River.Howard had been deployed five days after the accident.
His father, Jeff Howard, said he called the Monroe County court system and offered to fax his son’s orders for Iraq. He said a woman agreed to postpone the hit-and-run case until his son returned home from war.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, a warrant was issued for his arrest the day of the scheduled hearing.
And when he got stopped on Ind. 231 north of Worthington this past Friday on a charge of speeding, the outstanding warrant popped up on the police officer’s computer. He hauled Nathan Howard off to jail and left Howard’s fiancee crying in the truck.
(Read more after the leap)
Link: HeraldTimesOnline.com. (Subscription required.)
August 9th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
The problem with the scenario is the guy broke the law and relied on the government to cover his a**.
The military should be leaning away from covering up crimes soldiers commit. They are NO different. Just because they are on leave doesn’t give them a carte blanche.
It was up to the soldier to ensure he invoked the SSRA, not his boss.
August 9th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
The problem with the scenario is the guy broke the law and relied on the government to cover his a**.
Are you serious? Yes, he left the scene of an accident, but no one covered for him. He did not have a choice of whether to go back to Iraq. His family was told that the hearing would be rescheduled. He was arrested for failing to appear at a hearing that would not have taken place had county government not been completely incompetent. He was not going to be given a free pass for leaving the scene of an accident.
The military should be leaning away from covering up crimes soldiers commit.
Who is covering up a crime? Did you read the article? You’re making a lot of assumptions here.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
truthbetold - put the doobie down and pay attention.
This is a case of incompetence and dereliction of the America hating public officials in charge of the People’s Republic of Bloomington.
Even a moonbat blog noticed this post and was equally outraged.
August 11th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
I don’t think it was an issue of “America hating” as much as simple incompetence.