- The Moore County sheriff's deputy who shot a Fort Bragg
soldier to death and injured another on Saturday did not know the soldiers
were part of a role-playing Special Forces exercise, said Lane Carter,
chief deputy of the Moore County Sheriff's Department.
-
- "They attacked the deputy with everything they had,
and he responded accordingly," Carter said. "One was trying to
get the deputy's weapon. The other was pulling a weapon out of a bag. They
ended up getting shot over it. He reacted as any officer would
react."
-
- The soldiers were not wearing uniforms. One of them
carried
a bag containing a disassembled M-4 carbine, a standard Special Forces
weapon, Army officials said. Participants in the exercise do not carry
live ammunition.
-
- The Army on Sunday night had not identified the soldiers,
pending notification of their families. The injured soldier was in serious
but stable condition at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in
Pinehurst.
-
- "It was a tragic misunderstanding and
miscommunication
between those individuals,,, said Maj. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for U.S.
Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.
-
- Deputy Randall Butler shot the soldiers at 2:30 p.m.
Saturday on Acorn Ridge Road, about one-half mile from N.C. 705 near
Robbins
in northern Moore County, the Sheriff's Department said.
-
- The State Bureau of Investigation said Butler stopped
what appeared to be a suspicious vehicle.
-
- Randy Myers, a criminal specialist in the Fayetteville
district office of the SBI, said there was a confrontation and "Deputy
Butler felt like his life was in imminent danger.,,
-
- Soldiers Were Students
-
- The soldiers were among about 200 students in the Robin
Sage exercise, the culminating part of the Special Forces Qualification
Course.
-
- The 19-day exercise takes place in the Uwharrie National
Forest and 10 counties in central North Carolina, which make up a
fictitious
country called "Pineland. The 10 counties are Richmond, Scotland,
Anson, Stanly, Montgomery, Moore, Lee, Chatham, Randolph and
Davidson.
-
- Kolb said it has been standard procedure for many years,,
for students to wear civilian clothes and drive in civilian vehicles during
the exercise.
-
- The exercise tests skills in survival, tactics and
dealing
with people, as well as ethics, judgment and decision-making.
-
- The Army has received help from local residents and
governmental
agencies for Robin Sage for years, and that support is crucial to the
program's
success, Kolb said.
-
- But Saturday's scenario did not anticipate the
involvement
of local law enforcement, he said.
-
- Because of that, we would not have notified any of the
agencies involved that this was taking place,,, Kolb said.
-
- The scenario involved a reconnaissance mission to observe
a target that would be part of an objective for a future mission, Kolb
said.
-
- The soldiers were riding in a truck with a civilian
driver.
The civilian was a local resident playing a role as a resident of
"Pineland.
-
- No Earthly Idea
-
- Carter, the Moore County chief deputy, said Butler had
"no earthly idea,, what was going on. He thought they were going to
kill him,,, Carter said.
-
- Butler is on administrative leave for his emotional
health,,,
Carter said. The deputy has been with the Sheriff's Department since 2000
and has been in law enforcement for about 15 years, Carter said.
-
- He will come back any time he gets ready,,, Carter
said.
-
- No charges have been filed.
-
- Carter compared the traffic stop to a 1997 incident on
Interstate 95 when two law enforcement officers were killed. Cumberland
County Deputy David Hathcock and N.C. Highway Patrolman Ed Lowery were
shot to death on Sept. 22, 1997, after a routine traffic stop on I-95.
Brothers Kevin and Tilmon Golphin of Richmond, Va., have been sentenced
to death for the killings.
-
- Carter said the situation was similar on Saturday in
that one person tried to get the officer's attention while the other tried
to fire a rifle.
-
- Carter said he understood that law-enforcement officials
in adjacent Randolph County had been involved in part of the exercise,
but Moore County was not involved.
-
- Kolb said the Army "will look at where the
miscommunication
happened and make sure we take some of the steps to ensure it doesn,t
happen
again.
-
- Our sympathy goes out to everyone involved,,, Kolb
said.
-
- Kolb said police in the Moore County town of Robbins
had been involved in an exercise with the same group of students several
nights before.
-
- When we know ahead of time a training scenario involves
local law enforcement, we will coordinate with those agencies ahead of
time,,, Kolb said.
-
- Exercise to Continue
-
- The Robin Sage exercise began on Feb. 16 and will
continue
through March 2, said Maj. Rich Patterson, a spokesman for the John F.
Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg.
-
- The JFK Center and School has recontacted all of the
counties we are currently operating in,,, Patterson said. We also asked
the Moore County Sheriff's Department through their law-enforcement
channels
to ensure the municipalities know we will be continuing to train through
March 2.,,
-
- The Army's standard procedure is to notify the counties
and municipalities in the 10-county area, Patterson said.
-
- The responsibility for notifying local officials of
exercises
is with the 1st Battalion of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group of
the JFK Center and School, Patterson said. The battalion is in charge of
the qualification course.
-
- The training has been conducted in central North Carolina
since the mid-1950s without incident... an Army statement said.
-
- Patterson said Special Forces soldiers returning from
Afghanistan have said their work there was a mirror image of what they
are trained to do in Robin Sage.
-
- The operations they are conducting in Afghanistan
validate
the superb training scenario of unconventional warfare using their skills
as expert trainers to train a host nation's military to win back its
country,
Patterson said.
-
- Military editor Henry Cuningham can be reached at
486-3585
or cuninghamh@fayettevillenc.com.
-
- Copyright 2002 The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer.
- http://www.fayettevillenc.com
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