Involuntary Manslaughter Charge May Be Dropped After Danny Chen’s Death
A military investigator has recommended that the most serious charge be dropped against an American infantryman implicated in the death of Pvt. Danny Chen, a Chinese-American soldier from New York City who, relatives said, was brutally hazed by members of his Army unit in Afghanistan and then apparently killed himself.
American military officials announced the investigator's recommendation on Monday but did not explain the reasoning behind it.
The infantryman, Specialist Ryan Offutt, 32, of Greenville, Pa., faces 13 charges, including involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide and assault. After a pretrial investigative hearing, the military investigator concluded that the involuntary manslaughter charge should be dropped, officials said in a statement. The investigator recommended that the other charges stand.
Specialist Offutt is one of eight soldiers charged with an array of crimes in connection with the death of Private Chen, 19, whose body was found in a guard tower on an American military base in Afghanistan on Oct. 3.
In addition to Specialist Offutt, four others have also been charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years confinement and a dishonorable discharge, a military spokesman said.
Representatives of the Chen family, who have expressed concern that the military would not investigate the case thoroughly, criticized the investigating officer's recommendation.
Elizabeth R. OuYang, president of the New York chapter of OCA, a civil rights group that has been working with the family, said she was "disappointed" by the decision but hoped the brigade commander would ignore it and forward all the charges. "A strong signal must be sent that there are serious repercussions for engaging in hazing that leads to someone's death," she said.
The pretrial inquest — known as an Article 32 hearing, and similar to both a civilian preliminary hearing and a civilian grand jury — concluded on Sunday, the statement said.
The matter now rests with the commander of the soldiers' Army unit, the First Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division. The commander can refer some or all of the charges to the commanding officer for allied forces in southern Afghanistan, who will then decide whether the defendant should be court-martialed.
The commander can also decide to mete out punishments himself — or take no action at all, the spokesman, Sgt. First Class Alan G. Davis, said.
If found guilty in a court-martial on all the charges against him, Specialist Offutt faces a maximum punishment of more than 23 years of confinement, reduction in rank and a dishonorable discharge from the Army, Sergeant Davis said.
Article 32 hearings for the other seven defendants are to take place over the next four weeks, officials said.
The military has not declared an official cause of Private Chen's death except to say that he suffered "an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound."
Private Chen's parents, both Chinese immigrants, said they had been told by military officials that their son was subjected to brutal hazing and racially charged harassment by fellow soldiers, including during the hours before his death.
The military has offered few details about Private Chen's experience in Afghanistan. But relatives in New York have said that in private briefings, representatives of the Army have described how he was subjected to a campaign of racial slurs and humiliation that amounted to hazing, which is against Army rules.
In the relatives' account, Private Chen was mistreated nearly every day in Afghanistan, where he had been deployed only two months before his death.
They said he had been called slurs like "gook" and "chink," and was forced to shout in Chinese to a battalion that had no other Chinese-American soldiers. In addition, after having left a water heater on, he was pulled from his bed by other soldiers and dragged across the floor, forced to crawl on the ground while they pelted him with rocks and made to do grueling exercises, relatives said.
The case has focused new attention on the treatment of Asians in the Army and on the sometimes ambivalent relationship between the armed forces and the Asian population of the United States, which is under-represented among new recruits.
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