The Army ignored her warnings about a dangerous colleague. Then he set her on fire

[blondebanshee]

It was Clifford Currie, a 54-year-old civilian employee who Blanchard supervised. She couldn't yet see what was in his hands.

For months, Blanchard, then a first lieutenant, had warned her supervisors and coworkers that something would happen to her. She told them that Currie scared her. He would fly off the handle at a moment's notice. He would yell and physically intimidate her.

She told them Currie was dangerous.

Then he did what she said he would.

As Currie stood in the doorway of Blanchard's second floor office at Munson Army Health Center, he pulled out a small clear bottle filled with a brown liquid. His eyes were glazed over and bloodshot as he doused her in gasoline.

Then he lit a pair of matches and threw them on the 26-year-old Army nurse, lighting her on fire.

[link:https://taskandpurpose.com/katie-blanchard-feres-doctrine|

[Throck]

1. I swear the world is going crazy one person at a time.

Can't wait to retire and minimize my contact with the random people in the world. No more commuter road rage no office crazies at the coffee pot. Just me and the cats.

[unblock]

2. Oh yeah. Because cats are immune to crazy.

[Throck]

6. They have a code of silence.

[unblock]

8. and claws ;)

[blondebanshee]

5. Amen!

[IronLionZion]

12. Cats will eat you if they get hungry enough

[lunatica]

17. So will dogs

It’s a survival thing.

[IronLionZion]

18. So will humans, in some cases

[GeoWilliam750]

23. Three words one does not want in one's obituary

"Cat ate eyeballs"

[onecaliberal]

3. What happened to her?

[Princess Turandot]

4. She survived, but suffered 3rd degree burns on her arms, face, neck etc..

There's photos of her in the article, but they're pretty awful.

He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

She's trying to sue the army for negligence, but she's up against the Feres doctrine, an old supreme court decision which prevents military personal from suing the government in almost all cases.

[More_Cowbell]

9. She should spend all of her time standing at Army recruiting stations

Telling potential recruits that the Army won't support them.

[bluecollar2]

11. +1....n/t

[catbyte]

14. That doesn't seem right because she was a civilian employee. That sucks.

[mtngirl47]

16. She was a 1st Lt--active duty nurse supervising a civilian employee n/t

[catbyte]

21. Oops, I must've misread it.

[GitRDun]

7. All of her supervisors should be fired!

WTF? That many complaints against the guy he should have been gone.

Prolly some old white dude (lol like me) was her supervisor.

[avebury]

19. They should be criminally prosecuted. Nt

[ROB-ROX]

10. Was this guy another republican NUT???

The old law of suing the government may have been WRONG like many things in the past. I think when a WRONG is committed by an organization then a person can sue. There are so many republican drones on the supreme court it will be a fight. I think there are a few things in the constitution which require UP DATING. I think electing supreme court judges to flush out the drones and keep the good ones. Maybe a six year term for judges.

[LiberalLovinLug]

13. Maybe a stupid question but if he was under her supervision...why couldn't she just fire him?

His work was also well below par. Isn't that reason enough?

But even if she couldn't, how could someone so unstable, and bad at his job, NOT be let go a lot sooner by those that could make those decisions?

Anyways, its tragic. And it could have been worse. This could easily have been another mass shooting.

[Stonepounder]

22. I don't know about the military, but just being somebody's supervisor

normally doesn't give you the ability to just fire someone under you. In the public sector if you want to fire a subordinate you have to go through HR and they have to determine that the firing is valid.

Example: I was Computer Operations Manager many years ago. My staff worked 12 hrs/day, 3 days a week. They were actually at work 13 hrs/day to allow for lunch break and a 30 min overlap with their opposite number. I had a guy who worked the 6:00pm-6:00am shift and absolutely couldn't be bothered to show up on time. He was always anywhere from 30 min to over an hour late. I talked to HR. To get rid of him I had to 1) give him a verbal warning, 2) give him a written warning. After I had done that a couple of days later he didn't bother showing up at all.

The Computer Dept was manned 24 hrs/day. The employee manual, which was mainly written for warehouse employees, said if you were going to be absent leave a message on the warehouse Super's phone, since the warehouse started 1 hour earlier than the office staff. So dufus didn't bother to call the Computer Dept to say he wasn't going to be in, he left a message on the warehouse phone.

I still couldn't fire him, since technically he had followed procedure. I had to write a memo, to be signed and returned to me, that Computer Operations staff had to call the Computer Dept if they were going to be absent. Then I had to write him up, notifying him that if he continued to be late he would be fired.

Finally, about a week later, when he had not arrived more than 2 hours after his shift was supposed to have started, HR finally agreed with me and fired his ass. And he blamed me for 'having it in for him'.

[Blue_Tires]

15. Jesus...

[iemitsu]

20. I suppose Currie is on Trump's pardon list?