Joint Base San Antonio has worst record of sexual assaults of all joint bases in the country

A new Pentagon study tallied 2,685 sexual assault reports over a four-year period at the nation’s 12 joint bases. Joint Base San Antonio had the most, at 881. A new Pentagon study tallied 2,685 sexual assault reports over a four-year period at the nation’s 12 joint bases. Joint Base San Antonio had the most, at 881. Photo: Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News Photo: Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Joint Base San Antonio has worst record of sexual assaults of all joint bases in the country 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

A new Pentagon study shows that Joint Base San Antonio tallied more sexual assault reports over the past several years than any other joint base installation in the Defense Department, with 881 cases from 2013 through 2016.

The report tracks sexual assault claims by installation, which a former Air Force prosecutor said appears to be a first. It examined two types of claims filed by people who say they are sexual assault victims, but it did not break out the statistics by each base in San Antonio.

A majority of those lodging complaints at Joint Base San Antonio, which includes Army and Air Force installations, were airmen.

Joint Base San Antonio, the largest of 12 joint bases in the country, consists of Fort Sam Houston, Randolph and Lackland, home of Air Force basic training and the scene of a recent sexual misconduct scandal that was the worst in the service’s history.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state had the next highest number of reports at the combined installations, with 559.

In all, 2,685 reports were filed over the four-year period ending in the 2016 fiscal year at the joint bases, which were created by a 2005 base closure commission.

READ THE REPORT HERE:

Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia had the worst single-base record, with 1,055 reports. Fort Hood, a major deployment hub since 9/11, had far more reports than any other Army post, with 863. Fort Bliss had 394 sexual assault cases.

“Certainly those numbers are alarming, large numbers, and when you look at the definition of assault under the uniform military code, you’re talking about very serious action,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said Saturday.

As cases of sexual assault roil the world of entertainment and politics since women spoke out against movie producer Harvey Weinstein, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama and U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, the Pentagon reports reflect a troubling history that long has gone unresolved on the nation’s military bases.

The Pentagon’s office for sexual assault prevention and response collected statistics from installations around the world that show there were 23,754 reports filed from the 2013 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2012, through the end of the past fiscal year on Sept. 30. The Defense Department said it had decided to release the information, citing requests for the base-by-base reports.

The numbers mirror past Pentagon studies that showed thousands of troops reporting unwanted sexual behavior, but unlike those reports, the numbers didn’t delve into such details as whether complaints ended in trials. The Army, the nation’s largest service branch, had the most reports — 8,294 over those years — with the Navy, Air Force and Marines following with 4,788, 3,876 and 3,400, respectively.

A category called “combat areas of interest” listed 17 countries, ranging from Afghanistan, Djibouti and Yemen to Kyrgyzstan, Syria and Uganda, and showed that 711 reports had been filed in those areas since 2013.

Two kinds of reports were filed: restricted reports that allowed victims to seek medical help but do not result in legal action, and “unrestricted” reports that launch law enforcement investigations that can lead to trials.

Relatively few sexual assault cases actually go to trial each year.

Dr. Nate Galbreath, deputy director of the Defense Department’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, cautioned that reports filed at one base may be for an incident that occurred elsewhere.

“A report could involve allegations for an incident that occurred while on deployment, while away on leave or even prior to entering the military,” he said. “This kind of flexibility allows the department to better meet the department’s goals to increase reporting of sexual assault and decrease the occurrence of the crime through prevention.”

The latest numbers suggest that training bases, where young and relatively low-ranking troops are found in large numbers, are the most likely to see restricted and unrestricted reports filed. Training bases that include the Marines’ Camp Lejeune and Camp Pendleton, Naval Station Great Lakes and Joint Base San Antonio tended to have some of the highest numbers.

Like Lackland, Camps Lejeune and Pendleton, along with Great Lakes, are basic training hubs.

Neither Joint Base San Antonio nor the Air Education and Training Command responded to requests for comment.

Most Air Force bases had relatively low numbers. Laughlin AFB in Del Rio had 13 reports filed since 2013, while Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts saw 29 complaints. Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio had 83 over four years, Dyess AFB in Abilene reported 59 and Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls logged 58.

The Air Force Academy, by comparison, was much higher, at 168.

“Where there’s a higher concentration of younger troops, there’s higher numbers,” said retired Air Force Col. Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders, which advocates for assault and sexual assault victims. “A lot of the sexual assaults are done at the lowest ranks, at least the victims are, and when they’re newest to the military.

“They’re at the most vulnerable at that time, they’re away from home for the first time, they’re viewing people above them in more of a God-like view of seniority.”

The scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, which helped launch a congressional investigation, saw 35 military training instructors investigated for assaults and harassment of 69 recruits and technical training students and led to a commander-directed investigation. One instructor, who was given 20 years for rape and later committed suicide in prison, was known for intimidating recruits.

That power imbalance was at the core of the scandal. Recruits’ fears of being “washed back” or recycled into an earlier phase of basic training, and not graduating on time with their class, played such a large role in the scandal that the Air Force revamped basic training. New rules put into place giving recruits opportunities to report instructor misconduct later drew complaints from some military training instructors.

The San Antonio Express-News, in breaking the scandal, also documented repeated cases of retaliation against assault victims, failure to provide legal and medical support for them, and dismissal from the service on dubious grounds after they reported abuse.

At Fort Hood, a former advocate for sexual assault victims recruited three young female soldiers into a GI prostitution ring. Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Lynn McQueen Jr., a 39-year-old one-time Dallas resident, was given two years in prison and a dishonorable discharge in 2015 for plotting to build a stable of hookers who’d turn tricks at swinger and stripper parties.

The Pentagon in May said its sexual assault numbers showed both a drop in the estimated number of attacks over the past four years and a rise in victims’ willingness to tell authorities about the crimes, but the news wasn’t all good.

Nearly 60 percent of sexual assault victims said they faced some form of retaliation in 2016, a figure that has varied little over six years. The number of such crimes actually reported to military authorities, moreover, hasn’t changed significantly since 2014.

The estimated total of troops in all services who were assaulted, based on a biennial Pentagon survey released last year, dropped to 14,900, from 26,000 in 2012. Defense officials also said the percentage of victims who say they reported has almost tripled since 2007.

Still, Protect Our Defenders’ Christensen noted that 97 percent of sexual assault reports failed to end in a conviction. Just 389 cases went to trial in fiscal year 2016, he said, with 124 ending in a guilty verdict. That was down from 543 cases that went to trial in 2015, with 255 ending in convictions.

In those years, the number of unrestricted reports remained almost identical — 4,584 in 2015 and 4,591 last year.

“They’re just playing fast and loose with the numbers,” said Christensen, a former Air Force prosecutor, defense attorney and judge. “Although the overall numbers are down in the survey, the rate of rape against women in the military is virtually unchanged since 2010.”

sigc@express-news.net