On May 11, 2009, five United States military personnel were fatally shot at a military counseling clinic at

Camp Liberty Camp Liberty is a former United States military installation in Baghdad, Iraq. The installation was used from 2012 to September 2016 to house members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also called MEK), who had been forcibly evicted from ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

Sergeant John M. Russell. In the days before the killings, witnesses stated Russell had become distant and was having suicidal thoughts. Russell was charged with five counts of murder and one count of

aggravated assault An assault is the act of committing physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in crim ...

. Officials stated there was an argument at the Camp Liberty Combat Stress Center and Russell was being escorted back to his unit at Camp Stryker when he took an unsecured

M16 rifle The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-roun ...

from his escort, drove back to the clinic, and opened fire on unarmed personnel.

Background

Sergeant John M. Russell (born 1965) was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq as a communications NCO with the 54th Engineer Battalion. According to a fellow NCO, Russell was a quiet soldier who seemed to have trouble with new computer systems and learning how to make repairs. Russell was "very good" with traditional radio devices, but a lack of new skills degraded his performance and relationship with peers. Over time, the NCO said Russell became increasingly distant and visibly disturbed. He had been previously diagnosed with depression and

dyslexia Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

. In the days before the killings, witnesses said Russell became distant and started having suicidal thoughts. Russell had been to the Camp Liberty Combat Stress Clinic on three prior occasions. On May 11, 2009, Russell went to the clinic for a fourth time for a noon appointment.

Killings

Officials stated that at Russell's noon appointment at the clinic, there was a heated argument between Russell and clinic personnel. Russell was being escorted back to his unit at Camp Stryker when he took an unsecured

from his escort and drove back to the clinic. Soldier charged in deaths of 5 U.S. troops
/ref>
/ref> At 1:41 PM local time, Military Police at Camp Liberty received a report that shots had been fired at the Camp Liberty clinic. Witnesses at the scene saw Russell using an M16A2 rifle. Five U.S. military personnel were killed: U.S. Army Specialist Jacob D. Barton, Sergeant Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, Major Matthew P. Houseal, Private First Class Michael E. Yates, and

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

Commander Charles K. Springle.

Court martial proceedings

Russell was charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault. On May 15, 2012, prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty, overruling a pre-trial hearing recommendation that Russell's mental "disease or defect" made capital punishment inappropriate. Lead defense attorney James Culp stated he would pursue an insanity defense, alleging treatment Russell received just prior to the killings was "mental health mistreatment" and "a significant causal factor" in the massacre.

Mental health claims

Under already contentious circumstances, the decision by military prosecutors to seek a death sentence against Sgt. Russell re-energized a blame game E-5’s mental health debated in Iraq shootings
/ref> that has pitted Russell's defense attorneys against the U.S. Army psychiatric team their client partly targeted at the Camp Liberty Combat Stress Center.
/ref> Lead defense attorney James Culp called treatment Russell received just prior to the killings "mental health mistreatment" and "a significant causal factor" in the massacre, leading him to pursue a "first-ever" insanity defense. News feature stories have subsequently appeared supporting, and rebutting, that argument. An indictment of combat zone mental health care in the U.S. military, an August 1, 2012

Bloomberg BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

story suggested the three counselors Russell saw for about 2.5 hours total are culpable, and could have prevented the tragedy. But in an interview, one of those counselors, psychiatrist (then Lt. Col.) Michael Jones, counters in detail. Jones, who roomed with victim Matthew Houseal and survived the shootings by escaping through a window, instead describes a combat stress team that was "competent, well-trained, and empathetic" and a soldier, Sgt. Russell, who wanted to leave the Army at any cost. In 2013, Russell pleaded guilty to five counts of unpremeditated murder to avoid a possible death sentence. The plea deal stipulated that the prosecution would be able to make a case the murders were indeed premeditated. In May 2013, the jury agreed that the murders were premeditated, meaning Russell now faced a mandatory life sentence. The judge was then given the choice over whether to give him a chance of parole. Russell was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without parole.

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