Court martial proceedings at a Wyoming Air Force base this month revealed a cover-up of an airman’s shooting death earlier this summer.
The fellow airman accused of killing Airman Brayden Lovan on July 20 was found dead in his dormitory at F.E. Warren Air Force Base on October 8, Military.com reported.
Court martial proceedings for Airman 1st Class Sarbjot Badesha and A1C Matthew Rodriguez last week revealed what happened when A1C Marcus White-Allen shot Lovan to death with hia M18 service weapon.
Badesha and Rodriguez pleaded guilty to making false officials statements about the murder. In their guilty pleas, they admitted seeing White-Allen draw his weapon from its holster and point it at Lovan’s chest. They said they heard the discharge and saw Lovan fall to the ground.
After the shooting, they said, White-Allen told them what to tell investigators, although, he gave them different stories to tell.
“Here’s the story,” he told Badesha. “Tell them that I slammed my duty belt on the desk, and it went off.”
He told Rodriguez to say the gun just went off.
The lies prompted the Air Force Global Strike Command to temporarily suspend use of the M18 pistol while they conducted safety inspections to determine if there was a defect in the weapon.
But investigators later found that White-Allen had his finger on the trigger when he put the gun up against Lovan’s chest, and tests on his service weapon found no defects.
White-Allen was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, making a false official statement, and obstruction of justice, although he was not identified at the time. The investigation into Lovan’s death was halted after White-Allen’s death.
After Badesha and Rodriguez’s guilty pleas last week, the Air Force said that the airman found dead on October 8 was the same one charged with killing Lovan. Investigators are still probing White-Allen’s death.
Badesha and Rodriguez were both busted down a rank and sentenced to 30 days and 10 days confinement each. Rodriguez was also restrictred to base for 15 days, and both were required to pay fines.
Airmen at F.E. Warren have now been connected to multiple shooting deaths since July, Military.com reported. On August 16, A1C Jadan Orr fired an AK-47 through a bedroom wall in an off-base partment, killing Senior Airman Joshua Aragon. Orr has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and has pleaded not guilty.
On September 30, A1C Marcus E. Jackson killed himself at an off-base residence in Fort Collins, Colorado. Investigators say he did so after murdering 18-year-old Alyssa Reardon.
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[Featured image: FE Warren AFB/Google Maps]
