Veterans Affairs police officers on VA grounds across America " have beaten veterans, bungled sensitive investigations, falsified arrest reports, conducted improper searches, and ignored basic procedures, like reading citizens their Miranda rights." -The Intercept
By Kevin Stoda
Every evening and morning, I look out at the Kansas City VA Medical Center just down the hill from where I live here off Linwood Avenue in eastern Kansas City, Missouri. It is also a place where Vets go to get help as well as a place to go to commit suicide.
It is a humongous building and makes me pray for the victims and perpetrators of war American-style decade-after-decade. It is a place where vets die from confrontations in the parking lot.
You see, earlier this year, Dale Farhner, "of Kingston, Missouri, was driving himself to the emergency room at the Kansas City VA Medical Center in May 2018 because of an infection from a hernia surgery he'd had there. A VA Police officer stopped him because he was going the wrong way in the parking lot. An argument ensued, and one or two officers took Farhner to the ground, according to a suit filed by his family. He was semi-conscious when he got to the emergency room and was transferred to the University of Kansas Hospital, where he died two days later at age 66."
In addition, "The VA has also refused to provide information about Farhner's death to members of Congress and Farhner's family, who filed their wrongful death suit in May 2019 after they got no response to an administrative complaint."
WAIT TIMES
Aside from stress of being on long wait lists, Vets have too often been systematically discriminated against when mental health has caused them to leave the military in disgrace. The Intercept released a long article castigating the VA not long ago.
In the article, according to The Intercept, "Violent incidents like [the one note above in KC's VA Medical Center] can have fatal consequences. In 2014, the VA paid out a $500,000 settlement to the family of Jonathan Montano, a veteran who died following a physical altercation with police at the VA hospital in Loma Linda, California. Police ruptured Montano's carotid artery, which resulted in blood clotting and a stroke. "
Moreover, "
Today, nearly 4,200 Veterans Affairs police officers are stationed at 139 VA medical centers across the country. These cops are tasked with keeping order on VA grounds and overseeing a patient population that includes many highly trained ex-military members with psychological trauma. The force's motto is "Protecting Those Who Served." Yet for Hathaway and scores of other veterans, that maxim hasn't matched the reality on the ground. After reviewing internal police reports, legal documents, and local news reports spanning the past 10 years, The Intercept has identified dozens of credible allegations that VA cops in every corner of the United States have neglected standard police procedures, violated patients' constitutional rights, or broken the law."
The Inspector General's own report of December 2018 had indicated that the VA's Offices do "not have adequate and coordinated governance over its police program to ensure effective management and oversight for its approximately 4,000-strong police officer workforce."
" The OIG's 2018 report was the latest in a string of embarrassing inquiries dating back to the late 1980s," The Intercept has noted. Meanwhile, " VA police in Washington, D.C., allege that they were repeatedly ordered to falsify training records, dispatch journals, and police reports."
PARKING LOT SUICIDES
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