KILLEEN, Texas (CN) — Surviving family members of a 2015 shooting rampage outside Fort Hood say the Army failed to protect a battered spouse and her neighbors from her abusive husband, who should not have been able to obtain the gun he used in the murders.
Karin Kristensen, Michael Farina and Christina Guzman sued the United States in Federal Court on behalf of the estates of Dawn Larson Giffa, Lydia Farina and Steven Guzman, and their six surviving minor children.
In February 2015, Spc. (Specialist) Atase Giffa was living off-base with his wife, Dawn Giffa, and her son K.L. in Killeen. Dawn and K.L. were Canadian citizens and lawful U.S. residents. Giffa was about to be transferred to Georgia, but Dawn wanted to stay in Killeen to finish nursing school.
“Spc. Giffa took this news poorly,” the lawsuit says. On Feb. 9 Giffa took Dawn’s and K.L.’s passports and identification cards, plus Dawn’s credit cards and money. In a subsequent argument, neighbors saw him slam Dawn against their truck and hold her down by the wrists. The neighbors noticed red marks on Dawn where Giffa had grabbed her, thrown her, and restrained her, according to the complaint.
The neighbors called Killeen police, who declined to arrest Giffa, since he was a soldier assigned to an Army unit at Fort Hood. They told Dawn to call the military police at Fort Hood, and Giffa’s military commander.
Under Army policy on spousal and child abuse, each Army base is required to create and enter into a Memorandum of Agreement with local law enforcement to define responsibilities when responding to cases of domestic abuse. “It is not discretionary whether the base will enter into an MOA with adjoining jurisdictions,” the complaint states. But that apparently never happened at Killeen and Fort Hood.
“(D)uring the decades that Fort Hood has been in existence, as the largest Army base in the world, a practice has developed that when soldiers are involved in criminal behavior outside of the installation that would otherwise come under the jurisdiction of civilian police and courts, military authorities will assume responsibility for the investigation and ultimate disposition of the matter. Civilian authorities will defer to the soldiers’ military commanders, their senior enlisted advisers, and the military police and judicial systems,” the complaint states.
After Killeen police left the Giffa residence, Dawn and K.L. went across the street to the home of their neighbors Michael and Lydia Farina, seeking refuge. Killeen police had told Dawn the incident would be reported to commanders at Fort Hood and would be handled by them.
On the morning of Feb. 10, Dawn called Giffa’s commander at Fort Hood and told him about the domestic abuse the previous night. The commander told Dawn that Army personnel would remove Giffa from their home, put him on 48-hour watch, place him in the barracks at Fort Hood for seven days and issue a restraining order, or no-contact order, preventing him from coming within 500 feet of Dawn, her son and their residence.