No Jail for Army Contractor in Revenge Killing

[Mr Bean]

It's a shame he so clearly killed the guy after others had arrived and he'd realised the guy was a prisoner and was just going to prison. It's ironic that if he'd been MORE revenge motivated, he would have just killed the guy immediately with no witnesses.

Stark ..... Stark... stark....

Let me quote the relevant section back to you

Ayala chased Salam down, tackled him to the ground, and restrained him with plastic cuffs. ”After about 10 minutes,” according to an Army Criminal Investigation Division affidavit, “a soldier approached the location where Ayala had Salam detained and informed the personnel in the area that Loyd was burned badly. Ayala pushed his pistol against Salam’s head and shot Salam, killing him instantly.”

Salam pored gasoline onto Loyd, lit her on fire then legged it. Ayala chased him down, took him down and restrained him in place. He had no idea what was going on with Ayala(Apparently Salam got a far distance away before he was tackled) and when told she was badly hurt he shot Salam. Until then he had no idea how badly Loyd was hurt, once he did, he shot Salam.

Here's a few more quotes from other news stories

According to court documents, Salam "fled immediately from the scene and ran 50 meters towards Ayala. Ayala drew his sidearm but did not fire and instead pinned Salam on the ground on a commonly traveled path. Salam resisted violently but was eventually flex-cuffed and restrained with the assistance of members of the accompanying platoon. Ayala kept his sidearm "trained at Salam's head". Moments later, a US soldier and interpreter approached Ayala and Salam.

The interpreter "yelled at Salam, punched and kicked him and dragged him into an adjacent creek. Ayala retrieved Salam from the creek and put him back on the path," pinning him down with knee to chest. According to court documents, Ayala was advised of Loyd's status and subsequently shot Salam in the head killing him instantly. Ayala agreed to the factual nature of these events and entered a plea of voluntary manslaughter.

The defence is laughable, though. He killed a guy who was unarmed and restrained, and punishing him would 'compound the tragedy'? Pfft.

Finding a journey willing to convict in these circumstances would be hard and finding a prosecutor who would be willing to "win" the case would be hard as well, lucky this is America so they found one. However even this prosecutor only argued for a "lengthy" prison term and repeated the 8 years figure several times in court. In US law that close to minimum sentencing requirement.

The only reason this did not go before a jury is because he plead guilty. Had he demanded his right to a jury trial he well could have been acquitted totally. Instead he's walking out with a suspended sentence.

OAN
In this sort of case is he still going to be VA OK? Will he be losing his benefits over this?

[Aaron]

OAN
In this sort of case is he still going to be VA OK? Will he be losing his benefits over this?

Well the article states that he is a contractor, so I'm not sure if your system gives them benefits or not but unless he got a dishonourable discharge he would still be eligible, correct? Our system is quite specific on when you get them and when you don't but I'm not an expert on yours.

[Stark]

It's a shame he so clearly killed the guy after others had arrived and he'd realised the guy was a prisoner and was just going to prison. It's ironic that if he'd been MORE revenge motivated, he would have just killed the guy immediately with no witnesses.

Stark ..... Stark... stark....

Let me quote the relevant section back to you

Ayala chased Salam down, tackled him to the ground, and restrained him with plastic cuffs. ”After about 10 minutes,” according to an Army Criminal Investigation Division affidavit, “a soldier approached the location where Ayala had Salam detained and informed the personnel in the area that Loyd was burned badly. Ayala pushed his pistol against Salam’s head and shot Salam, killing him instantly.”

Salam pored gasoline onto Loyd, lit her on fire then legged it. Ayala chased him down, took him down and restrained him in place. He had no idea what was going on with Ayala(Apparently Salam got a far distance away before he was tackled) and when told she was badly hurt he shot Salam. Until then he had no idea how badly Loyd was hurt, once he did, he shot Salam.

So... you're arguing he somehow missed the 'person is on fire' part? My point stands (which you even previous agreed with in an earlier post) - if he'd just blasted the guy instead of waiting for witnesses to be around, nobody would have batted an eye. 'Informed that xyz was burned badly' is probably reporting code for 'holy shit man your partner is totally fucked up now', thus revenge. He caught him, tied him up, then when he realised 'oh shit this guy burnt my partner to death and is about to be taken into custody' killed the guy in cold blood in front of witnesses. Even if he'd been informed over a radio he could have arguably removed the cuffs and said 'uhhh... whoops', but there was apparently a guy right there.

[Mr Bean]

So... you're arguing he somehow missed the 'person is on fire' part? My point stands (which you even previous agreed with in an earlier post) - if he'd just blasted the guy instead of waiting for witnesses to be around, nobody would have batted an eye. 'Informed that xyz was burned badly' is probably reporting code for 'holy shit man your partner is totally fucked up now', thus revenge. He caught him, tied him up, then when he realised 'oh shit this guy burnt my partner to death and is about to be taken into custody' killed the guy in cold blood in front of witnesses. Even if he'd been informed over a radio he could have arguably removed the cuffs and said 'uhhh... whoops', but there was apparently a guy right there.

Again did you even read the post? Because your either ignoring it to make your view more reasonable or being deliberately dense.

Chain of events
Salam lights Loyd on fire and legs it
Salam makes it over fifty meters to where Ayala is, who then draws his sidearm but instead opts to take him down instead.
Salam "resistless violently" but Ayala with the assistance of an un-named fellow trooper subdues him and flexi-cuffs him.
Another interpreter also unnamed comes up and begins assaulting the bound Salam and tries to drag him away. While Ayala pushs him off and brings him back to the point he originally took him down.

There he and the other unnamed solider/trooper sit on their prisoner until roughly ten minutes later when Ayala is informed of what happened and that Loyd is badly hurt"

Here's the key point your ignoring, if Mr Ayala wanted to kill Salam for vengeance or to make sure he would have never came to trial he could have simply shot him when Salam tried to run past him, instead he tackled him and arrested him and protected him when someone else tried to attack Mr Salam.

If you read the stories the point should jump out at you because this is not the actions of a man who suddenly changed his mind knowing full well what Salam had done.

His actions were of a man who had just found out the man who had just tried to run past him, was running away from the scene of an terrible crime, and the victim of that crime was a close friend of his. Something Mr Ayala did not know

Just for extra fun
Here's the judgment!(PDF)
Everything I can find backs up the idea, there were in a village Mr Ayala did not have knowledge of what had occurred at first, he knew only that Salam had tried to escape, he subdued him and then when he found out what did happen, he killed him.


*Edit further note
Line of Sight
Google Maps

There are no maps of the village itself but to note this Afghanistan, I'll toss this in is our major premise was that Mr Ayala knew exactly what Salam had done. Considering they were patrolling in an Afghan village and the court distance was fifty meters there is a excellent chance the only idea Mr Ayala would have had of anything going on is Ms Loyd's screams. Even had they been on a flat featureless plain(Which Afghanistan is not) I can say from some experience that Mr Ayala would have roughly three to eight other soldiers to keep track off plus the normal civilians and wandering children. Even combat trained as he is unless he had been staring at the two of them he would be hard pressed to say who was that living torch. The court documents and reports agree that Salam splash a good half galleon of gasoline on her.

[Stark]

Uh... no shit. That's kinda the whole point there Beany; it was that he waited so long that created the legal situation. I feel it's likely it was the combination of coming down and the realisation of what happened (and what is likely to happen to the guy) that prompted the revenge.

Are you seriously quibbling over the defination of revenge? I mean, if he killed the guy once he knew what happened... that's... revenge.

Salam makes it over fifty meters to where Ayala is

Eh? The OP says he chased him down, not that the guy ran over to Ayala who was 50m from his partner. If that's not what happened, cool.

[Mr Bean]

Eh? The OP says he chased him down, not that the guy ran over to Ayala who was 50m from his partner. If that's not what happened, cool.

According to court documents, Salam "fled immediately from the scene and ran 50 meters towards Ayala. Ayala drew his sidearm but did not fire and instead pinned Salam on the ground on a commonly traveled path. Salam resisted violently but was eventually flex-cuffed and restrained with the assistance of members of the accompanying platoon. Ayala kept his sidearm "trained at Salam's head". Moments later, a US soldier and interpreter approached Ayala and Salam.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Minor Question, did the female contractor/scientist actually survive the attack (doubtfull that she's going to make a full recovery, and if survives will need extensive surgery and rehabilitation for years to come)

[FSTargetDrone]

Minor Question, did the female contractor/scientist actually survive the attack (doubtfull that she's going to make a full recovery, and if survives will need extensive surgery and rehabilitation for years to come)

She died about 5 months later:

Paula Loyd succumbed to her wounds in January, and became the third Human Terrain researcher to die in nine months. Her family later asked the court to show leniency for Ayala.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Sorry, I missed that part, but then again, septic reactions with that kind of burns are kind of hard to survive, especially in that kind of enviornment/availability of medical services in the time line to prevent blood infection.