I have a problem when we let Germans and not our own army deal with such problems. It’s a bad precedent.
As for these problems having to deal with girlfriends, it is indeed alarming. Any such could be a foreign spy playing with a guy and we kill our own instead. As a matter of fact it has been the method of feminists of late. Even women who stand by their men see the couple being attacked by jealous third parties and strangely hungry prosecutions.
I disagree. He had broken into her home out in town and was fair game. Additionally, he might not have even been I.D.'d as a US soldier until after he was shot and killed.
I'm a sailor and whenever we pull into port, we are reminded that if we break the local laws, we're on our own. Often, the local police will do a "courtesy turnover" for drunk and disorderly sailors but not for something like this.
It’s called the Status of Forces Agreement; the US has them with most countries, as do those countries with soldiers training here in the US. I could just imagine a German soldier training at Ft Bliss or Ft Sill being remanded to the German military after a similar incident. Would not go over well.
“I have a problem when we let Germans and not our own army deal with such problems. It’s a bad precedent.”
It all happened on german soil, off the base, nobody might have known that he is a us soldier until he got killed.
The German Police do not mess around. When they tell you to stop, you stop. Any aggressive move whatsoever on the part of a potential perp is handled very severely.
I lived thee for two years in the 70's.
If this report is accurate, then the German Police did, off base, on their soveriegn soil, what they had to do to protect themselves and their citizens.
I's too bad one of our own behaved in this manner...but we have bad apples and he acted criminally and threatened life, and paid with his own.
While I was there, one guy took a tank off base and ended up running through a German town and crushing several cars. German citizens were killed. In that case MP's got on top of the tank and were able to get it opened and stop the guy. There was a big international flap over it because as you can imagine, the Germans wanted that guy. I can't remember whether afterwards they ever got him...but I know the Germans were extremely angy (and understandbly so) over it. The guy porobably got harsher treatment in Leavenworth or somewhere as he would have gotten in Germany...but I cannot blame them for wanting to try and punish him themsleves.
I have no problem, at all, with it. It IS their Country. Many heinous crimes have been committed by Americans over there, and our MP’s are, basically, trained to deal with Military matters. AFAIK, only our Army CID are trained and authorized to enforce off base, without a special agreement.
As I remember it...
Garrison MP’s=Traffic Cops, domestic disputes, Barracks fights,etc.
MPI’s=Investigator’s. Accidents, petty crimes, on base drug busts, etc.
CID=Criminalists. Major crimes.
Nope, this took place in a German community off base. The young man knew full well what he was dealing with.
WE are in THEIR country. When in any foreign country, you must respect the laws and the authorities thereof.
Would you feel the same way if a German soldier did this on OUR soil?
Its Germany, would you want a dozen foreign military police units running around in America with guns taking care of their problems?
Hats off to the Germans for handling it, we owe them an apology for having an unstable service man in their homeland.
We have agreements with NATO countries (and most others we have troops in), that a soldier that commits a civil offense in the host country will be tried by that country in its courts. If he commits a crime on base or against onother soldier, we deal with it.
have a problem when we let Germans and not our own army deal with such problems. It’s a bad precedent.
Do what now??? This happened OFF a US base on GERMAN TERRITORY. First of all man...lemme give you a heads up on something: German cops go through 4 years of basic police training before they hit the streets. They are a hell of a lot more qualified (not to mention their SWAT teams) to handle this kind of a situation.
Secondly, what about if a german soldier stationed here were to do this kind of thing...would you want the German Army to come chase this guy down in the streets of Ft. Bliss???? Get real man.