Sailor arrested in Camp Pendleton shooting death of seaman
SAN DIEGO – A sailor was charged Thursday with fatally shooting and burning Seaman August Provost during an alleged burst of crime June 30 at Camp Pendleton.
In announcing the charges, Navy officials suggested that Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Campos killed his victim indiscriminately. They again said there’s no evidence of a hate crime against Provost, who was gay, or of gang-related activity.
Campos, 32, of Lancaster, had served with Provost on Assault Craft Unit 5. He faces 16 charges, including murder, arson, unlawful entry, theft of military property and wrongful possession of a firearm, Capt. Matt Brown, a spokesman for Navy Region Southwest, said during a news conference Thursday afternoon at the San Diego Naval Base.
The Navy hasn’t announced a date for Campos’ pretrial hearing, called an Article 32 hearing.
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Family says closeted gay sailor killed Provost
The aunt of August Provost, a bisexual Navy seaman from Houston found murdered at Camp Pendleton last month, told Dallas Voice this week that the family has received information suggesting that her nephew’s killer is a gay sailor who somehow feared being outed by Provost.
Rose Roy, of Beaumont, the sister of Provost’s father, said in a phone interview Tuesday, July 14 that she’s “not at liberty” to identify the source who provided the information to the family. But Roy said the source told the family Provost had a heated argument with the suspect a week before his murder, and that the sailor now being held as a person of interest by the Navy has a history of mental illness.
“This guy went the extra mile to make sure that my nephew would never be able to speak about his [the killer’s] sexuality,” Roy said. “My nephew died for reasons other than what the military is saying.”
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Human Rights Campaign Statement on Death of San Diego Area Sailor
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, released a statement today in the death of Seaman August Provost, 29, at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, CA. According to local media reports, the Navy and Marine Corps confirmed that a sailor’s body was found on the base at about 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. A military spokesperson confirmed that there was evidence of foul play in the killing and that the case is a murder investigation. It is also understood a “person of interest” is in custody at Camp Pendleton but has not been charged with a crime. Local activists report the victim may have been targeted because of his sexual orientation.
“Our thoughts are with the Provost family at this time as authorities work to learn what happened in the early morning hours this past Tuesday,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “The Human Rights Campaign has confirmed Congresswoman Susan Davis has been in touch with officials at the base and is tracking the investigation. We know that every day members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are targeted for simply being who they are. Furthermore, our gay or lesbian soldiers struggle with the extra burden of not serving openly and honestly based on the discriminatory policy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ As we monitor the investigation, our community must continue to raise awareness on a law that we know hurts military readiness and national security while putting American soldiers at risk.”
The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.
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Navy: No evidence sailor’s death was a hate crime
The Navy said today there is no indication the shooting death of a sailor standing guard at Camp Pendleton was “terrorist-related” or a hate crime.
Seaman August Provost, 29, of Houston, was fatally shot while standing guard protecting the landing craft facility on base. His body was found at about 3 a.m. Tuesday.
Provost, according to his family and gay-activists, was gay. Two members of Congress, Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) and Susan Davis (D-San Diego), have asked the military to investigate whether Provost was murdered because he is gay.
A sailor dubbed a “person of interest” is in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego, although no charges have been filed.
On Thursday, Navy Capt. Matt Brown, director of public affairs for Navy Region Southwest, said Provost, who enlisted in March 2008, was a “rising star in our Navy” who was preparing to deploy soon and was considering advanced education and commissioning.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is “continuing to aggressively pursue all aspects of this case,” Brown said.
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Gay sailor’s family blames military after his death
Relatives of a slain sailor are calling the 29-year-old’s death a hate crime.
Rose Roy of Beaumont said her nephew, Navy Seaman August Provost III, had complained a year before about being harassed for being gay.
Roy said she advised Provost to report and document the incidents, but she said the military did little to help.
“He went to the Navy to serve and protect,” she said in an interview with Beaumont’s KFDM News, “he didn’t get protected at all.”
Roy told The Associated Press that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discouraged her nephew from asking for help.
“That phrase is just stupid because it tells them they have no one to speak to,” she said.
The 29-year-old Houston native was found dead Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. Roy said the family was told that Provost was shot three times, had his hands and feet bound, his mouth gagged, and body burned.
The family plans to hold funeral services July 10 in Houston.
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Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) said today that…
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) said today that he has asked the Department of Defense and the Marine Corps to investigate whether the killing of a sailor, who was gay, at Camp Pendleton was a hate crime.
Filner, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said he wanted a complete investigation of circumstances surrounding the death of Seaman August Provost, 29, of Houston. Provost’s body was found about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday in a guard shack on the western edge of the sprawling base.
Gay leaders in San Diego had asked Filner to intervene. Nicole Murray-Ramirez, chairman of the San Diego Human Relations Commission, said Provost’s family believes the sailor had been harassed by other personnel on the base.
Filner said initial indications are that Provost was shot and his body burned. He said his committee also will investigate the case.
[Updated 7:20 p.m.: In a late afternoon news conference, Navy officials today promised a thorough investigation into the killing. They said, however, that there was no evidence it was a hate crime. A sailor who is considered to be a person of interest remains in the brig. Another sailor, who was initially considered a person of interest, has been released.]
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Gay Sailor Found Dead On Marine Base In Suspected Homicide
CAMP PENDLETON — The body of a 29-year-old sailor was found in a Camp Pendleton guard shack Tuesday, and a “person of interest” was taken into custody in connection with the suspected homicide, Navy officials said yesterday.
The body of Seaman August Provost of Houston, Texas, was discovered about 3:30 a.m. on the western edge of the base, said Doug Sayers, a spokesman for Navy Region Southwest.
An autopsy was completed yesterday, but authorities were waiting for results of toxicology tests to determine a cause of death.
A “person of interest” was being held in the Navy brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. No charges have been filed.
The death has local gay activists calling for a formal investigation into whether Provost was slain because of his sexual orientation.
“We’re definitely monitoring this and trust and hope the military will investigate this in the professional way it should,” said Nicole Murray-Ramirez, chairman of San Diego’s Human Rights Commission. Murray-Rameriz also has contacted Reps. Susan Davis and Bob Filner, asking that they make official inquiries to the military concerning an investigation.
The Navy would not comment on whether Provost’s orientation had anything to do with the death.
“While ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’ is in place, anybody in the military who is a homosexual has no place to go to get assistance or counseling,” said Ben Gomez of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an advocacy group for gays in the military.
Provost’s boyfriend, Kaether Cordero, said yesterday that Provost was openly gay but kept his private life quiet for the most part.
“People who he was friends with, I knew that they knew,” Cordero said from Houston. “He didn’t care that they knew. He trusted them.”
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Obama To Consider Gay Pentagon Appointment
President Obama is considering nominating an openly gay man to a top civilian Pentagon post, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The president, under pressure from gay activists to live up to campaign promises he made to help secure greater rights for gay men and lesbians, is considering nominating William White to a high-ranking civilian Pentagon post. The paper did not disclose the post being considered, but White, chief operating officer of Manhattan’s Intrepid Museum Foundation, was once touted by top retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress to be the next Secretary of the Navy. While heading the Intrepid, White has accumulated extensive contacts in the armed forces, and in 1996, he was awarded the Meritorious Public Service Award for his work with the Navy.
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LGBT Organizations Point Out that Lawsuits Could Set Back Progress on Marriage for Same-Sex Couples
NEW YORK – In response to the California Supreme Court decision allowing Prop 8 to stand, four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups are reminding the LGBT community that ill-timed lawsuits could set the fight for marriage back. The groups released a new publication, “Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California.” This publication discourages people from bringing premature lawsuits based on the federal Constitution because, without more groundwork, the U.S. Supreme Court likely is not yet ready to rule that same-sex couples cannot be barred from marriage. The groups also revised “Make Change, Not Lawsuits,” which was released after the California Supreme Court decision ending the ban on marriage for same-sex couples in California. This publication encourages couples who have legally married to ask friends, neighbors and institutions to honor their marriages, but discourages people from bringing lawsuits.
“Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California” is available at http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/39672res20090527.html “Make Change, Not Lawsuits” is available at http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/35584res20090527.html.
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Time To Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
During his campaign for the White House, President Obama pledged that he would push to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) — the military’s policy that bars gay men and women from serving openly. Since taking office, however, Obama and other officials serving in his administration have pushed the issue to the back burner. When asked about addressing DADT in March, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.” Ret. Gen. Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, told the President recently “not to add another controversy to his already-full plate.” On ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous asked Jones if the policy would be overturned. “I don’t know,” he replied. In fact, the White House website recently watered down language on repealing the policy, replacing the administration’s commitment to “repealing” DADT with a commitment to simply “changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way.” (The more definitive “repeal” language has since been reinserted.) At the same time, Obama has indicated that he remains committed to repealing the policy. Sandy Tsao, an Army officer who told her superiors last January that she is gay, wrote to Obama urging him to act on repealing DADT. Last week, Obama personally responded to Tsao, writing, “I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete. … I intend to fulfill my commitment!”
DADT STILL CLAIMING CASUALTIES: DADT continues to weaken our nation’s military. Last week, the Army sent National Guard Lt. Daniel Choi — a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic — a letter informing him that he is no longer welcome in the U.S. military because he is gay. The Army said it was dismissing Choi for “moral or professional dereliction,” specifically for admitting “publicly that you are a homosexual, which constitutes homosexual conduct. Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard.” Choi is one of more than 13,000 U.S. military personnel to be discharged because of DADT. This number includes those with special skills deemed “mission critical,” such as pilots, combat engineers, and linguists like Choi. The Government Accountability Office found in 2005 that the cost of discharging and replacing servicemembers fired because of their sexual orientation during the policy’s first 10 years totaled at least $190.5 million — roughly $20,000 per discharged service member. While DADT cannot be repealed without congressional action, University of California associate professor Aaron Belkin notes that as president, Obama has the authority to suspend enforcement of the policy. Though it is unclear whether Obama will take this route (especially based on Jones’s advice), Choi said on MSNBC last week that he plans to “fully fight” his dismissal “tooth and nail.” “I believe that ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is wrong, and what we really need to be encouraging soldiers to do is to don’t lie, don’t hide, don’t discriminate, and don’t weaken the military. That’s what we need to be promoting,” he said.
REPEAL DADT: Supporters of the discriminatory DADT often argue that repealing it would weaken the military (despite the fact that Arabic-linguists who are in short supply have been discharged because of it) and fragment unit cohesion. However, a bipartisan study commissioned by the Palm Center at the University of California last year found that “the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win.” Choi said that “the biggest thing” he is “angry about” is that the Army claims that his unit suffered “good order and discipline” because he is gay. “That’s a big insult to my unit,” he said. After he came out as gay and before he was discharged, Choi said that “so many people came up to me, my peers, my subordinates, people that outranked me, folks that have been in the Army — and this is an infantry unit, infantry men that — coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, sir, hey, Lieutenant Choi, we know, and we don’t care. What we care about is that you can contribute to the team.’” Indeed, a December 2006 survey of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found that 73 percent of those polled were “comfortable with lesbians and gays.” Moreover, the American public doesn’t care either. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly two-thirds disagreed with the argument that “allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military would be divisive for the troops and hurt their ability to fight effectively.” Ret. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Hugh Aitken, who participated in the Palm Center’s study, has criticized Obama’s plans to allow the Pentagon to review the policy before deciding to act on any repeal. “There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” he said. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”
RIGHT WING STILL OPPOSES A REPEAL: The ultra-conservative Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a group that opposes women and gays serving in combat, is leading an effort against repealing DADT and even trying to block gays from serving in the military altogether. The group’s president, Elaine Donnelly, told Congress last year that having gays serve in the military “sexualizes the atmosphere” because they “engage in passive aggressive behavior.” CMR also tries to muddy the waters with “gay horror stories” from the military, despite having acknowledged that such stories are “very difficult to find.” Prominent members of Congress continue to obstruct as well. When asked about DADT last Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered his support for it. “Right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions,” he said, adding that “the policy has been working and I think it’s been working well.” Other members of Congress, such as Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), disagree. Sestak, himself a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, said of DADT recently on MSNBC, “We have to correct this. It’s just not right.” “I can remember being out there in command, and someone would come up to you and start to tell you — and you just want to say, no, I don’t want to lose you, you’re too good,” Sestak said.
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