The household of a Texas soldier who was sexually harassed and killed at a army base close to Killeen in 2020 filed a lawsuit Friday seeking $35 million in damages from the U.S. authorities.
The household of 20-year-old Vanessa Guillén is seeking damages on the premise of sexual harassment, abuse, assault, rape, sodomy and wrongful demise.
An investigation by army officers into the demise of Guillén, who was killed by a fellow soldier at U.S. Army base Fort Hood, discovered that she was additionally sexually harassed and that leaders didn’t take applicable motion. The lawsuit describes two situations in which Guillén was harassed throughout her time as a soldier and Guillén’s suicidal ideas consequently of dealing with the harassment, which she advised household that she didn’t report for worry of retaliation.
“This will be an opportunity for every victim to feel not only like they have a voice but that they can be made whole,” stated Natalie Khawam, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Guillén’s household.
The lawsuit follows a choice Thursday by a three-judge panel from the ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco stating that an Army colonel may proceed with a lawsuit towards a former Air Force General over a sexual assault allegation. The courtroom discovered {that a} regulation barring service members from seeking damages over accidents throughout service didn’t apply.
Guillén was declared lacking in April 2020. Her stays have been discovered that July, when the soldier accused of killing Guillén died by suicide following a confrontation with officers. A civilian confronted fees for allegedly serving to Robinson dispose of Guillén’s stays.
In April 2021, the U.S. Army released a report saying officers at Fort Hood ignored Guillén’s complaints of sexual harassment. The report discovered that Guillén verbally reported she was sexually harassed on two events in 2019 by a supervisor who wasn’t her alleged killer. It didn’t determine who allegedly harassed her however stated it was a “superior noncommissioned officer in her unit.”
At the time, Khawam questioned why the outcomes of the investigation weren’t launched sooner.
“We knew she was being sexually harassed,” Khawam advised CBS News. “We knew that people were lying. We knew she was falsely accounted for. We knew all of this. Why it took so many months to come out with this, I don’t know.”
Guillén’s demise and claims by her household that she was harassed and assaulted on the Texas base sparked a social media motion of former and lively service members who got here ahead about their very own experiences in the army with the hashtag #IAmVaessaGuillen. State and federal lawmakers have since handed laws in honor of Guillén that eliminated some authority from commanders and gave survivors extra choices to report.
story by The Texas Tribune Source link