Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
January 12, 2008 By Dan Frosch
COLORADO SPRINGS — After surviving intense combat in Iraq, Specialist Kevin Shields was killed on what he had thought was friendly soil. His bloody, bullet-riddled body was found by a newspaper deliverer, sprawled on a downtown sidewalk here on Dec. 1.
Three of Specialist Shields’s buddies, all current or former soldiers who served with him in Iraq before their return last year, have been charged with murdering him. Details are still emerging, but his death, and that of an Army private whose killing has now been attributed by the authorities to two of the three men charged in the Shields case, have shaken this staunchly pro-military city and Fort Carson, an expansive Army base on the edge of town.
According to court documents released this week and accounts from his family, on the night of Nov. 30 Specialist Shields celebrated his 24th birthday by getting together with those three friends: Louis Bressler, 25; Kenneth Eastridge, 24; and Pfc. Bruce Bastien Jr., 21. The four men, who had served together as members of the Second Infantry Division’s Second Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Carson, went drinking at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
Most of what is publicly known about the events of that night comes from a police interview about a month ago in which, prosecutors say, Private Bastien, having earlier denied knowledge of the killing, declared that he was present when Mr. Bressler committed it. And that was just one of several crimes that Private Bastien said the three had carried out around Colorado Springs.
Investigators say Mr. Eastridge has confirmed most of Private Bastien’s account of the Shields killing, but have revealed little else.
In that account, the authorities say, the four friends had met at the nightclub when Mr. Bressler and Mr. Eastridge began discussing plans to commit a series of robberies in Colorado Springs. After leaving the club, the men drove to a park, where Mr. Bressler and Specialist Shields engaged in a drunken quarrel. The two came to blows, Private Bastien said, but appeared to patch things up and returned to the car.
Soon afterward, the four stopped again, because Mr. Bressler felt ill. But when they got out of the car, the police quote Private Bastien as saying, Mr. Bressler walked over to Specialist Shields and, without provocation, shot him five times with a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.
The police say Private Bastien told them that he thought the attack had been motivated by Mr. Bressler’s fear that Specialist Shields would tell someone about the robbery plans.
“It’s such a tragic event that none of us were expecting,” said Capt. Ben Jackman, who commanded both Specialist Shields and his three friends at Fort Carson. “Everyone was shocked to hear about this.”
J. D. Hill, a Vietnam veteran who manages a local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, says the killing has outraged many onetime soldiers in Colorado Springs. “A lot of veterans here can’t understand how this happened,” Mr. Hill said. “This man had just returned from Iraq. What these guys were thinking is beyond comprehension.”
Specialist Shields’s family feels particularly stricken at the thought that his death may have come at the hands of fellow soldiers. “We don’t know if it was something from Iraq that might have set them off,” said his grandfather, Ivan Shields, who raised him in and around Roscoe, Ill. “We don’t know what in the world made them do this.”
The arrest of the three accused may have solved the killing of another soldier here. Mr. Eastridge, officials say, has accused Private Bastien and Mr. Bressler of involvement in the robbery and fatal shooting of Pfc. Robert James, whose body was found in the parking lot of a Colorado Springs bank last Aug. 4, and Private Bastien says Mr. Bressler was the triggerman in that slaying as well. Both Private Bastien and Mr. Bressler have now been charged with murder in the James case.
Mr. Bressler, from North Carolina, was honorably discharged last summer after Army doctors found that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his service in Iraq, says his lawyer, Ed Farry. Mr. Bressler was framed by his two co-defendants, Mr. Farry says, because they knew that his memory had been distorted by the condition.
Mr. Eastridge, from Ekron, Ky., received a Purple Heart after being wounded by a mine in Iraq. A public defender representing him would not comment on the case.
A lawyer for Private Bastien, a medic from Fairfield, Conn., who received a commendation for administering aid in combat, also declined to comment.
Beyond additional local shootings and a stabbing in which investigators say Private Bastien has implicated himself and his co-defendants, court records show that he has accused Mr. Eastridge of firing without provocation on Iraqi civilians while on patrol in Baghdad, using stolen AK-47s.
In that accusation, made to an Army investigator a few days after Private Bastien had given details in the Shields killing, he “said that he knows that an Iraqi civilian was struck on at least one occasion,” according to the court records.
A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, Chris Grey, said the military was conducting a preliminary inquiry but had not uncovered any credible evidence to substantiate Private Bastien’s account.
At a court hearing in the Shields case on Tuesday, Mr. Bressler and Mr. Eastridge, both strikingly youthful, fidgeted nervously with their shackles, their eyes darting around the courtroom, their lips flashing an occasional grin to the gallery.
Afterward, Mr. Bressler’s wife, Tira, said in an interview that he had thought of Specialist Shields “pretty much like his brother.”
“He’s not the person who would do something like this,” Ms. Bressler said.
Specialist Shields, who suffered head injuries when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee, was haunted by his time in Iraq, particularly the searing images of children who had been killed in cross-fire, his family says.
He was overjoyed to be home and was awaiting the birth of his second child. He loved computers, says his grandmother, Madlyn Shields, and was preparing for his Army discharge and the start of a new job at Hewlett-Packard.
“If it had happened in combat,” Ms. Shields said, “we would have understood. But not this. This is senseless.”
January 12, 2008 By Dan Frosch
COLORADO SPRINGS — After surviving intense combat in Iraq, Specialist Kevin Shields was killed on what he had thought was friendly soil. His bloody, bullet-riddled body was found by a newspaper deliverer, sprawled on a downtown sidewalk here on Dec. 1.
Three of Specialist Shields’s buddies, all current or former soldiers who served with him in Iraq before their return last year, have been charged with murdering him. Details are still emerging, but his death, and that of an Army private whose killing has now been attributed by the authorities to two of the three men charged in the Shields case, have shaken this staunchly pro-military city and Fort Carson, an expansive Army base on the edge of town.
According to court documents released this week and accounts from his family, on the night of Nov. 30 Specialist Shields celebrated his 24th birthday by getting together with those three friends: Louis Bressler, 25; Kenneth Eastridge, 24; and Pfc. Bruce Bastien Jr., 21. The four men, who had served together as members of the Second Infantry Division’s Second Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Carson, went drinking at a Colorado Springs nightclub.
Most of what is publicly known about the events of that night comes from a police interview about a month ago in which, prosecutors say, Private Bastien, having earlier denied knowledge of the killing, declared that he was present when Mr. Bressler committed it. And that was just one of several crimes that Private Bastien said the three had carried out around Colorado Springs.
Investigators say Mr. Eastridge has confirmed most of Private Bastien’s account of the Shields killing, but have revealed little else.
In that account, the authorities say, the four friends had met at the nightclub when Mr. Bressler and Mr. Eastridge began discussing plans to commit a series of robberies in Colorado Springs. After leaving the club, the men drove to a park, where Mr. Bressler and Specialist Shields engaged in a drunken quarrel. The two came to blows, Private Bastien said, but appeared to patch things up and returned to the car.
Soon afterward, the four stopped again, because Mr. Bressler felt ill. But when they got out of the car, the police quote Private Bastien as saying, Mr. Bressler walked over to Specialist Shields and, without provocation, shot him five times with a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver.
The police say Private Bastien told them that he thought the attack had been motivated by Mr. Bressler’s fear that Specialist Shields would tell someone about the robbery plans.
“It’s such a tragic event that none of us were expecting,” said Capt. Ben Jackman, who commanded both Specialist Shields and his three friends at Fort Carson. “Everyone was shocked to hear about this.”
J. D. Hill, a Vietnam veteran who manages a local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, says the killing has outraged many onetime soldiers in Colorado Springs. “A lot of veterans here can’t understand how this happened,” Mr. Hill said. “This man had just returned from Iraq. What these guys were thinking is beyond comprehension.”
Specialist Shields’s family feels particularly stricken at the thought that his death may have come at the hands of fellow soldiers. “We don’t know if it was something from Iraq that might have set them off,” said his grandfather, Ivan Shields, who raised him in and around Roscoe, Ill. “We don’t know what in the world made them do this.”
The arrest of the three accused may have solved the killing of another soldier here. Mr. Eastridge, officials say, has accused Private Bastien and Mr. Bressler of involvement in the robbery and fatal shooting of Pfc. Robert James, whose body was found in the parking lot of a Colorado Springs bank last Aug. 4, and Private Bastien says Mr. Bressler was the triggerman in that slaying as well. Both Private Bastien and Mr. Bressler have now been charged with murder in the James case.
Mr. Bressler, from North Carolina, was honorably discharged last summer after Army doctors found that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his service in Iraq, says his lawyer, Ed Farry. Mr. Bressler was framed by his two co-defendants, Mr. Farry says, because they knew that his memory had been distorted by the condition.
Mr. Eastridge, from Ekron, Ky., received a Purple Heart after being wounded by a mine in Iraq. A public defender representing him would not comment on the case.
A lawyer for Private Bastien, a medic from Fairfield, Conn., who received a commendation for administering aid in combat, also declined to comment.
Beyond additional local shootings and a stabbing in which investigators say Private Bastien has implicated himself and his co-defendants, court records show that he has accused Mr. Eastridge of firing without provocation on Iraqi civilians while on patrol in Baghdad, using stolen AK-47s.
In that accusation, made to an Army investigator a few days after Private Bastien had given details in the Shields killing, he “said that he knows that an Iraqi civilian was struck on at least one occasion,” according to the court records.
A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command, Chris Grey, said the military was conducting a preliminary inquiry but had not uncovered any credible evidence to substantiate Private Bastien’s account.
At a court hearing in the Shields case on Tuesday, Mr. Bressler and Mr. Eastridge, both strikingly youthful, fidgeted nervously with their shackles, their eyes darting around the courtroom, their lips flashing an occasional grin to the gallery.
Afterward, Mr. Bressler’s wife, Tira, said in an interview that he had thought of Specialist Shields “pretty much like his brother.”
“He’s not the person who would do something like this,” Ms. Bressler said.
Specialist Shields, who suffered head injuries when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee, was haunted by his time in Iraq, particularly the searing images of children who had been killed in cross-fire, his family says.
He was overjoyed to be home and was awaiting the birth of his second child. He loved computers, says his grandmother, Madlyn Shields, and was preparing for his Army discharge and the start of a new job at Hewlett-Packard.
“If it had happened in combat,” Ms. Shields said, “we would have understood. But not this. This is senseless.”