Social Issues in the Military and Law Enforcement

Chelsea Manning Tried Committing Suicide a Second Time in October

In this article, Charlie Savage reports about Chelsea Manning second attempted suicide. Miss Chelsea had previously served in the Army in Iraq as an intelligence analyst. During this time, Miss Chelsea had attempted suicide for the second time. She was convicted and sentenced to 35 years for allegedly leaking confidential army documents to Wikileaks.

In my opinion, the court sentence was unwarranted and contributed to Miss Manning's multiple suicide attempts. During the trials for this case, the court established that Miss Manning had undergone both psychological and mental deterioration at the time when she committed the alleged crime. As such, the court ought to have considered that fact by the time it made the ruling. This application of the law that did not consider Miss Manning's special case has contributed to her frustrations and hence the attempted suicide. Moreover, the length of imprisonment in the sentence she received must have contributed in making Miss Manning desperate to the point of attempted suicide. In my opinion, the court has had a great influence on Miss Manning's frustrations and consequent suicide attempts. I think Miss Manning does not deserve a second prosecution because of the attempted suicide. Any person in her conditions would be equally tempted to do the same.

"Rikers Officer Pleads Guilty to Helping Cover up Fatal '12 Beating of Inmate."

The article reports about Byron Taylor's involvement in the torture of an inmate that was under his care. Taylor has pledged guilty for his involvement and support of the torture of the inmate that ultimately led to his death. Taylor admitted that he also had aided in obscuring the investigation into the murder of the inmate.

I find this confession quite interesting in light of the consequences of such a confession. If convicted, Taylor could get a life sentence. Therefore, his willingness to admit that he had indeed taken part in such a crime is quite surprising. In an interesting twist, Mr. Coll who allegedly carried out the assault that led to the death of the inmate had previously pledged not guilty to the charges. Therefore, Taylor's admission is suspicious because he is aware of the dire consequences of such an admission. Moreover, this admission implicates Mr. Coll and could be the evidence that the court will use in convicting him.

"Mount Vernon, N.Y., Police Found Not Responsible for Woman's Death in Holding Cell"

This article reports of the investigations that exonerated the police the death case of one of the inmates under their custody. In this report, the investigating agents found that the woman in question had died a natural death and that the police were involved in the death of the woman. The implication of this report is that the police no longer have a case to answer about the death of the woman under their custody.

I found several loopholes in the investigation that exonerated the police officers. First, the investigation report indicated that the deceased had sought hypertension medication before her death. Therefore, the investigators draw a correlation between the medication and the ultimate death of the woman. However, the fact that the deceased had undergone medication does not necessarily indicate that she had died because of that disease. The fact that the woman had sought treatment of hypertension does not necessarily mean that she had died of the same disease. This gap could be a deliberate effort to exonerate the police officers.