Guard complains over strip search for tattoos

Guard complains over strip search for tattoos
By Sue Major Holmes - The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The commander of New Mexico's National Guard is
demanding an apology from the Army brass after dozens of his soldiers
in a mostly Hispanic unit were ordered to strip to their gym shorts
and searched for gang tattoos while on duty in Kuwait.

Army officials said the searches last May of 58 New Mexico National
Guardsmen in a unit called Task Force Cobra were proper and legal. But
Brig. Gen. Kenny Montoya, head of the state National Guard, said he
believes ethnicity played a role in the episode - the unit is 55
percent Hispanic.

"I said something wrong was done there, and it was because of race,
and I want to make sure it will not happen again," Montoya said.

The search, in which the soldiers were ordered to take off their
shirts, shoes and socks and then were looked over for tattoos, was
prompted by an unsubstantiated allegation from a soldier in another
unit who complained about gang activity among soldiers in Kuwait.

At the time, several members of Task Force Cobra objected that the
searches were racially motivated, and within days, Montoya asked his
Army bosses to apologize. When that didn't happen, Montoya wrote an
apology and had that read and posted at their barracks.

Montoya, in a June 1 letter to Gen. Peter Schoomaker in the office of
the Army chief of staff, said the unit "was racially targeted and
illegally searched for body tattoos just because the unit consists of
a large number of Hispanic-surnamed soldiers. An Army CID agent
without any credible evidence, and armed only with information about
an individual soldier from a different base and in a different unit,
made a decision to target my unit."

"All I asked was that someone with equal rank to me would go over to
these great Americans and apologize - this still has not been
accomplished."

After the Albuquerque Journal reported the incident this week, New
Mexico's congressional delegation demanded that acting Army Secretary
Pete Geren order a full investigation. Gov. Bill Richardson, the
nation's only Hispanic governor and a Democratic presidential hopeful,
said he supports an investigation into the "degrading searches."

The New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens
also expressed outrage.

"This is no way to treat our troops that are sacrificing their lives
for the cost of our freedom. Racial profiling is reprehensible and
should not be condoned," said Paul A. Martinez, the group's executive
director.

The issue affected everyone in the unit, Hispanic or not, Montoya
said. "They're all brothers in arms. Most had come out of Iraq, where
they were in immediate danger."

The incident began after a Chicago Sun-Times article quoted Army
Reserve Sgt. Jeffrey Stoleson of the 127th Infantry at Camp Navistar,
Kuwait, about alleged gang activity among troops.

Stoleson, a corrections officer in civilian life, complained he was
"tired of serving and putting his life on the line with gang bangers,"
Montoya said. Later, the sergeant told Army Criminal Investigation
Division agents that a soldier with a Hispanic surname, Morales, in
the 127th Infantry and unnamed soldiers in the 111th Air Defense
Artillery - to which the security force Cobra belongs - had gang
tattoos.

On May 25, CID agent Paul McGuire ordered the Guard members at Ali Al
Salem Air Base, Kuwait, checked for tattoos. The inspections quickly
came to the attention of Montoya back in New Mexico. He telephoned up
the chain of command; another round of searches set for the next day
was stopped. When Montoya asked, he was told no other units were
searched.

"The only tie with Morales was my guys were the only unit with 50
percent Hispanics," the general said.

McGuire found no gang tattoos. A later investigation said Morales
denied being a member of a gang and even explained the meaning of his
tattoos.

The Army forbids extremist, racist, sexist or vulgar tattoos. Army
regulations don't specifically forbid gang membership but do prohibit
membership in any extremist organization.

Several members of the targeted unit were current or former police
officers who would have picked up on any signs of gang activity, said
Maj. Kenneth Nava, a spokesman for the New Mexico Guard.

Maj. Anne Edgecomb in the Army's public affairs department in the
Pentagon said in an e-mail Wednesday to The Associated Press that the
Army had just received the congressional delegation's letter calling
for a full investigation and that no response had yet been sent.

"The U.S. Army, one of the most ethnically diverse organizations in
our nation, provides equal opportunity to all our soldiers regardless
of race, ethnicity or gender," she said.

The Army's inquiry to date has found the CID and officers of the 111th
"approved and coordinated the plan" for searches. An attorney with the
military's Judge Advocate General said having soldiers remove their
shirts to verify gang tattoos was legal.

Nava said that plans as described and plans as executed are not always
the same.

The inquiry recommended discipline against three New Mexico soldiers
who objected to the searches. Nava said those three were counseled,
but there was no long-term discipline that would hurt their careers. /
copy and paste from http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/0...ocheck_070427/

I especially like this part: "Nava said that plans as described and
plans as executed are not always the same."

That applies to the entire war in Iraq it seems.

--
Curt